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  Gnome 2.30 Released

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 10:37pm MDT by samzenpus

  Hypoon writes "The GNOME project is proud to release this new version of the GNOME desktop environment and developer platform. Among the hundreds of bug fixes and user-requested improvements, GNOME 2.30 has several highly visible changes: new features for advanced file management, better remote desktop experience, easier notes synchronization and a generally smoother user experience. Learn more about GNOME 2.30 through the detailed release notes and the press release."

  

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  Fossil of Ant-Eating Dinosaur Discovered In China

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 9:29pm MDT by samzenpus

  thomst writes "Charles Q. Choi of LiveScience reports that a farmer in southern Henan Province in China has dug up the first known ant-eating dinosaur, a half-meter-long theropod (the dinosaur family to which T. Rex belongs), whose fossilized remains were described as 'fairly intact'. The 83- to 89-million-year-old pygmy dinosaur has been named named Xixianykus zhangi by Xig Xu, De-you Wang, Corwin Sullivan, David Hone, Feng-lu Han, Rong-hao Yan, and Fu-ming Du, whose paper on the critter, A basal parvicursorine (Theropoda: Alvarezsauridae) from the Upper Cretaceous of China, was published in the March 29 issue of Zootaxa (the abstract is available in PDF format for free, the full article is paywall-protected.)"

  

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  The End of the Road For Texting Truckers

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 8:46pm MDT by samzenpus

  crimeandpunishment writes "The US Transportation Department is calling for a permanent ban on texting while driving, for interstate truck and bus drivers. An interim ban has been in place since January. The government says it is doing everything it can to make roads safer by reducing the threat of distracted drivers. The Transportation Department says nearly 6,000 people were killed and half a million injured in crashes involving distracted drivers in 2008."

  

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  Office Guardian Angel Worse Than Clippy

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 6:27pm MDT by samzenpus

  ZWilder writes "Remember 'Clippy', the annoying anthropomorphic paper clip foisted upon unsuspecting users of Office? Well Microsoft has taken the concept behind Clippy and 'turned the dial up to 11' with its new, even more intrusive animated life-coach, known as 'Guardian Angel.' Patented in 2006, Guardian Angel is 'an intelligent personalized agent' that 'monitors and evaluates a user's environment to assist in decision-making processes on behalf of the user.' Like a manlier Fairy Godmother. Or a similarly omniscient HAL from '2001: A Space Oddysey.'"

  

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  World's Smallest Superconductor Discovered

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 5:26pm MDT by samzenpus

  arcticstoat writes "One of the barriers to the development of nanoscale electronics has potentially been eliminated, as scientists have discovered the world's smallest superconductor. Made up of four pairs of molecules, and measuring just 0.87nm, the superconductor could potentially be used as a nanoscale interconnect in electronic devices, but without the heat and power dissipation problems associated with standard metal conductors."

  

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  Microsoft Claims Google Chrome Steals Your Privacy

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 5:11pm MDT by samzenpus

  An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft is going on the offensive against Google, accusing the search giant of creating a browser that does not respect user privacy. The company posted a video, embedded below, on TechNet Edge with the following description: 'Watch a demo on how Google Chrome collects every keystroke you make and how Internet Explorer 8 keeps your information private through two address bars and In Private browsing.' Microsoft's first criticism is Chrome's combining the address bar and the search box into a single entry box; IE8 keeps those fields separate. 'By keeping these boxes separate, your privacy is better protected and the addresses of the sites you're visiting aren't automatically shared with Microsoft, or anyone else,' says IE product manager Pete LePage."

  

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  "Supertaskers" Can Safely Use Mobile Phones While Driving

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 3:56pm MDT by timothy

  nk497 writes "While most of us are dangerous when texting, chatting on a phone or being otherwise distracted while driving, one in 40 are actually just fine with such distractions. In a small study, such 'supertaskers' were just as good at driving when carrying on a conversation over a hands-free phone as they were when fully focused. That said, the researchers warned that most people are much worse at driving while chatting and shouldn't do it, adding: 'Given the number of individuals who routinely talk on the phone while driving, one would have hoped that there would be a greater percentage of supertaskers.'" That 1 in 40 aside, reader crimeandpunishment writes "The US Transportation Department is calling for a permanent ban on texting while driving, for interstate truck and bus drivers. An interim ban has been in place since January. The government says it is doing everything it can to make roads safer by reducing the threat of distracted drivers."

  

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  NASA Mars Satellite Snaps 1st Public-Picked Photos

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 3:01pm MDT by timothy

  coondoggie writes "NASA today said it took eight high-resolution photos of Mars that were chosen through a public suggestion box the space agency put up in January. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE camera, aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is nicknamed 'the people's camera,' NASA stated. Through the suggestion box known as HiWish, NASA has received nearly 1,000 suggestions. The first eight images of areas the public selected are available online."

  

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  Yale Delays Move To Gmail

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 2:13pm MDT by timothy

  Mortimer.CA writes "The Yale Daily News is reporting that the move to Gmail has been postponed. After further consultations with faculty and staff, the concerns raised 'fell into three main categories: problems with "cloud computing" (the transfer of information between virtual servers on the Internet), technological risks and downsides, and ideological issues.' In the latter category, 'Google was not willing to provide ITS with a list of countries to which the University's data could be sent [i.e., replicated], but only a list of about 15 countries to which the data would not be sent.'"

  

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  Graph-View of Collaborative Development At GitHub

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 1:49pm MDT by timothy

  VindictivePantz writes "In an interesting graphical view on collaborative development, FlowingData writes: 'GitHub is a large community where coders can collaborate on software development projects. People check code in and out, make edits, etc. Franck Cuny maps this community (with Gephi), based on information in thousands of user profiles.'"

  

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  House of Commons Finds No Evidence of Tampering In Climate E-mails

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 1:30pm MDT by timothy

  dwguenther writes "The first of several British investigations into the e-mails leaked from one of the world's leading climate research centers has largely vindicated the scientists involved. The House of Commons' Science and Technology Committee said Wednesday that they'd seen no evidence to support charges that the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit ... had tampered with data or perverted the peer review process to exaggerate the threat of global warming." According to the article, the head of committee which produced the report "said the lawmakers had been in a rush to publish something before Britain's next national election, which is widely expected in just over a month's time"; two further inquiries are to examine the issue more closely. The "e-mails appeared to show scientists berating skeptics in sometimes intensely personal attacks, discussing ways to shield their data from public records laws, and discussing ways to keep skeptics' research out of peer-reviewed journals," but the committee concluded that East Anglia researcher Phil Jones was not part of a conspiracy to hide evidence that weakens the case for global warming.

  

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  New Method Could Hide Malware In PDFs, No Further Exploits Needed

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 12:47pm MDT by timothy

  Trailrunner7 writes "A security researcher has managed to create a proof-of-concept PDF file that executes an embedded executable without exploiting any other security vulnerabilities. The PDF hack, when combined with clever social engineering techniques, could potentially allow code execution attacks if a user simply opens a rigged PDF file. With Adobe Reader, the only thing preventing execution is a warning. Disabling JavaScript will not prevent this."

  

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  IsoHunt Told To Pull Torrent Files Offline

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 12:04pm MDT by timothy

  suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica: "The founder of popular Bit Torrent site IsoHunt, Gary Fung, has been ordered to remove the .torrent files for all infringing content — an order that could result in the site shutting down. US District Judge Stephen Wilson issued the order last week after years of back-and-forths over the legality of IsoHunt and Fung's two other sites (Torrentbox and Podtropolis). Fung claims he's still hoping for a more agreeable resolution that won't result in IsoHunt closing its doors, but for now, things aren't looking good for the torrent site."

  

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  Stand and Deliver Teacher Jaime Escalante Dies

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 11:24am MDT by timothy

  DesScorp writes "Jaime Escalante, the math teacher portrayed in the hit '80s movie Stand and Deliver, has died of cancer at age 79. Escalante is legendary for creating the advanced math 'pipeline' program at Garfield High in East Los Angeles in the '70s and '80s, an area populated mostly by poorer Hispanic families. Escalante's students eventually outpaced even richer schools in advanced placement tests for calculus. Escalante refused to accept excuses from his students or community about why they couldn't succeed, and demanded a standard of excellence from them, defying the notion that poor Hispanic kids just weren't capable of advanced work. While Escalante became a celebrity because of the hit movie about his efforts, jealousy from other teachers ... as well as red tape from teacher's unions and the public school bureaucracy, resulted in Escalante and his hand-picked teachers leaving Garfield. Since his departure, Garfield has never replicated Escalante's success with math students, and Reason Magazine reported on the shameful way in which others tore down what Escalante and his teachers worked so hard to build."

  

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  Councilman Booted For His Farmville Obsession

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 10:42am MDT by samzenpus

  Bulgarian Dimitar Kerin won't have to decide if he should tend his crops or pay attention to Plovdiv City Council business anymore. The committee voted him off 20-19, saying that he obviously "needs more time for his virtual farm." From the article: "Kerin was not alone in his obsession among council members. Council chairman Ilko Iliev had previously warned several of them that the new wireless network and laptops provided to all 51 council members were not to be used for playing games on social media sites during budget meetings. Kerin was singled out for continuing to manage his farm and milk his cows despite Iliev's warnings. "

  

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  Councilman Booted For His Farmville Obsession

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 10:42am MDT by samzenpus

  Bulgarian Dimitar Kerin won't have to decide if he should tend his crops or pay attention to Plovdiv City Council business anymore. The committee voted him off 20-19, saying that he obviously "needs more time for his virtual farm." From the article: "Kerin was not alone in his obsession among council members. Council chairman Ilko Iliev had previously warned several of them that the new wireless network and laptops provided to all 51 council members were not to be used for playing games on social media sites during budget meetings. Kerin was singled out for continuing to manage his farm and milk his cows despite Iliev's warnings. "

  

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  MIT Finds 'Grand Unified Theory of AI'

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 9:57am MDT by CmdrTaco

  aftab14 writes "'What's brilliant about this (approach) is that it allows you to build a cognitive model in a much more straightforward and transparent way than you could do before,' says Nick Chater, a professor of cognitive and decision sciences at University College London. 'You can imagine all the things that a human knows, and trying to list those would just be an endless task, and it might even be an infinite task. But the magic trick is saying, "No, no, just tell me a few things," and then the brain — or in this case the Church system, hopefully somewhat analogous to the way the mind does it — can churn out, using its probabilistic calculation, all the consequences and inferences. And also, when you give the system new information, it can figure out the consequences of that.'"

  

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  Facebook Kills Dataset of Crawled Public Profiles

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 9:19am MDT by CmdrTaco

  holy_calamity writes "Internet entrepreneur Pete Warden wrote a crawler that collated the public profiles of 210 million Facebook profiles and was set to release an anonymised version to researchers. The pages crawled can be read by any web user, and the robots.txt did not forbid crawling. However, Facebook claimed he had violated its terms of service and threatened legal action. Fearing costs, Warden has now destroyed his dataset. For a snapshot of the insights that data could have allowed, see Warden's post on how the friend networks of the 120 million US users in his data segregated into seven clusters." Of course, if he had it, this means anyone who wants it made their own version of this.

  

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  Lawmakers Ask For FTC Investigation of Google Buzz

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 8:47am MDT by CmdrTaco

  angry tapir writes "Eleven US lawmakers have asked the FTC to investigate Google's launch of its Buzz social-networking product for breaches of consumer privacy. The representatives — six Democrats and five Republicans from the House Energy and Commerce Committee — noted in their letter that Google's roll-out of Buzz exposed private information of users to Google's Gmail service to outsiders. In one case, a 9-year-old girl accidentally shared her contact list in Gmail with a person who has a 'sexually charged' username, the lawmakers said in the letter."

  

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  Gaming in the 4th Dimension

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 8:11am MDT by CmdrTaco

  Wolf pointed me to a video clip demonstrating this game: "Miegakure is a platform game where you explore the fourth dimension to solve puzzles. There is no trick; the game is entirely designed and programmed in 4D." Nothing to download yet.

  

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  Will Smith in for Independence Day 2 & 3

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 7:29am MDT by CmdrTaco

  bowman9991 writes "If one isn't enough, there are reports that 2 sequels to Roland Emmerich's 1996 alien invasion blockbuster Independence Day are in the works. Will Smith is back too. Apparently he delayed a sequel earlier by asking for too much money." Other rumors include using an iPad to destroy the alien space ships this time, and letting Obama fly a biplane. Data will have a 5-minute monologue about what it means to be human.

  

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  Will Smith in for Independence Day 2 & 3

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 7:29am MDT by CmdrTaco

  bowman9991 writes "If one isn't enough, there are reports that two sequels to Roland Emmerich's 1996 alien invasion blockbuster Independence Day are in the works. Will Smith is back too. Apparently he delayed a sequel earlier by asking for too much money." Other rumors include using an iPad to destroy the alien space ships this time, and letting Obama fly a biplane. Data will have a 5-minute monologue about what it means to be human.

  

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  Sex.com is Going Down

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 6:51am MDT by CmdrTaco

  nathanielinbrazil writes "A motion to dismiss the involuntary bankruptcy of Sex.com has been filed in a California court. Operational turmoil has put its owner in the doghouse with its creditors, who want to take over. 'It's the best domain in the world by far,' said Mike Mann, who has tried to keep the creditors at bay. Sex.com is estimated to be worth $100m. Let the games begin!"

  

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  Journalists' Yahoo E-Mail Accounts Compromised In China

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 6:09am MDT by timothy

  andy1307 writes "According to this article in the New York Times, In what appears to be a coordinated assault, the e-mail accounts of at least a dozen rights activists, academics and journalists who cover China have been compromised by unknown intruders. The infiltrations, which involved Yahoo e-mail accounts, appeared to be aimed at people who write about China and Taiwan, rendering their accounts inaccessible, according to those who were affected. In the case of this reporter, hackers altered e-mail settings so that all correspondence was surreptitiously forwarded to another e-mail address. The victims of the most recent intrusions included a law professor in the United States, an analyst who writes about China's security apparatus and several print journalists based in Beijing and Taipei, the capital of Taiwan."

  

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  Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 — Gaming On Six Panels

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 4:29am MDT by Soulskill

  MojoKid writes "AMD's 6-output Radeon has been seen in action at a number of events, but today the ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition is being officially launched. HotHardware paired the card up with six 22" Dell LCD panels in a 3x2 configuration — with a max resolution of 5760x2160 — and ran it through a number of popular titles including Dirt 2, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Left 4 Dead 2 and Crysis. For specialized, high-end graphics cards like this, the market potential may be relatively small. If, however, the idea of multi-monitor gaming is appealing to you and you've got the means to score one of these cards (along with multiple displays), you won't be disappointed." Reader Vigile adds a different analysis of the card's six-monitor gaming: "PC Perspective found FPS games were basically unplayable because of the bezel through the middle of their vision while RTS and racing games like StarCraft 2 and DiRT 2 were spectacular."

  

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  NZ Draft Bill Rules Out Software Patents

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 3:12am MDT by timothy

  Korgan writes "In what must be a first in the face of ACTA and US trade negotiations pressure, a Parliamentary select committee has released a draft bill that explicitly declares that software will no longer be patentable in New Zealand. FTA: 'Open source software champions have been influential in excluding software from the scope of patents in the new Patents Bill. Clause 15 of the draft Bill, as reported back from the Commerce Select Committee, lists a number of classes of invention which should not be patentable and includes the sub-clause "a computer program is not a patentable invention."'"

  

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  Heroes of Newerth Open Beta About To Start

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 1:30am MDT by Soulskill

  You may recall last summer when we discussed Heroes of Newerth, a title from S2 Games that's based on the popular Defense of the Ancients mod from Warcraft III. We passed out some closed beta keys, and there seemed to be a ton of interest, in part due to the fact that they have a Linux client. Well, if any of you missed it or want to see how the game has progressed since then, now is your chance — the open beta begins tonight (March 31). There's a countdown on the sign-up page that shows when you can register.

  

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  Solaris No Longer Free As In Beer

  Posted: March 31st, 2010, 12:06am MDT by timothy

  rubycodez writes "Oracle, having acquired Sun Microsystems, including its Unix, will no longer give away free Solaris licenses. Oracle also states that some features of its Oracle Solaris will not appear in OpenSolaris, which means OpenSolaris may start to die."

  

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  Gonorrhea As the Next Superbug

  Posted: March 30th, 2010, 9:03pm MDT by timothy

  WrongSizeGlass writes "Reuters is reporting that Gonorrhea risks becoming a superbug: 'The sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea risks becoming a drug-resistant "superbug" if doctors do not devise new ways of treating it, a leading sexual health expert said.'"

  

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  New Litigation Targets 20,000 BitTorrent-Using Downloaders

  Posted: March 30th, 2010, 6:02pm MDT by timothy

  Hugh Pickens writes "The Hollywood Reporter reports that more than 20,000 individual movie torrent downloaders have been sued in the past few weeks in Washington, DC, federal court for copyright infringement, and another lawsuit targeting 30,000 more torrent downloaders on five more films is forthcoming in what could be a test run that opens up the floodgates to massive litigation against the millions of individuals who use BitTorrent to download movies. The US Copyright Group, a company owned by intellectual property lawyers, is using a new proprietary technology by German-based Guardaley IT that allows for real-time monitoring of movie downloads on torrents. According to Thomas Dunlap, a lawyer at the firm, the program captures IP addresses based on the time stamp that a download has occurred and then checks against a spreadsheet to make sure the downloading content is the copyright protected film and not a misnamed film or trailer. 'We're creating a revenue stream and monetizing the equivalent of an alternative distribution channel,' says Jeffrey Weaver, another lawyer at the firm."

  

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  OpenNMS Celebrates 10 Years

  Posted: March 30th, 2010, 5:32pm MDT by timothy

  mjhuot writes "Quite often is it claimed that pure open source projects can't survive, much less grow and create robust code. One counter example of this is OpenNMS, the world's first enterprise-grade network management application platform developed under the open source model. Registered on 30 March 2000 as project 4141 on Sourceforge, today the gang threw a little party, with members virtually attending from around the world. With the right business savvy and a great community, it is possible to both remain 100% free and open source while creating enough value to make a good living at it."

  

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  James Lovelock Suggests Suspending Democracy To Save the World

  Posted: March 30th, 2010, 5:13pm MDT by timothy

  mosb1000 writes "Climate scientist James Lovelock claims it may be necessary to put democracy on hold to prevent a global climate catastrophe. He goes on to say that the best remedies may be adaptation techniques such as building sea defenses." Lovelock is famously the creator of the Gaia hypothesis.

  

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  Hacker Will Try To Restore Linux Support On PS3

  Posted: March 30th, 2010, 4:28pm MDT by Soulskill

  Many readers have been sending in news of the impending PS3 firmware update that will remove the ability to install other operating systems on the console. (We discussed it here on Sunday.) Over the past few days, legions of PS3 owners have been voicing their anger at Sony's decision, upset that they'll be forced to either lose their custom install or forgo use of the PlayStation Network and be unable to play certain games and movies. Now, hacker George Hotz, known for his iPhone jailbreaks and his PS3 hack earlier this year, has vowed to fight back and restore Linux support on the PS3. He said, "The PlayStation 3 is the only product I know that loses features throughout its lifecycle. Software PS2 emulation, SACD playback, and OtherOS support are all just software switches you can flip. It's unbelievable you would go and flip one, not just on new boxes you are shipping, but on tens of millions already in the field."

  

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  Adobe Flash Now Officially a Part of Google Chrome

  Posted: March 30th, 2010, 3:46pm MDT by CmdrTaco

  MacGene noted that Google has announced plans to include Flash with Chrome. This step will make Chrome easier for Mom & Pop to use, but comes with a host of issues that have been discussed here before. I expect them to announce Silverlight Thursday.

  

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  MS Issues Emergency IE Security Update

  Posted: March 30th, 2010, 3:00pm MDT by CmdrTaco

  WrongSizeGlass writes "CNET is reporting that Microsoft has issued an emergency patch for 10 IE security holes. 'The cumulative update, which Microsoft announced on Monday, resolves nine privately reported flaws and one that was publicly disclosed. ... Software affected by the cumulative update addressing all the IE vulnerabilities includes Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Server 2008, Vista, and Windows 7.'"

  

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  Novell Wins vs. SCO

  Posted: March 30th, 2010, 2:20pm MDT by CmdrTaco

  Aim Here writes "According to Novell's website, and the Salt Lake Tribune, the jury in the SCO v. Novell trial has returned a verdict: Novell owns the Unix copyrights. This also means that SCO's case against IBM must surely collapse too, and likely the now bankrupt SCO group itself. It's taken 7 years, but the US court system has eventually done the right thing ..." No doubt this is the last we will ever hear of any of this.

  

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  NASA Summoned to Fix Prius Problems

  Posted: March 30th, 2010, 1:41pm MDT by CmdrTaco

  coondoggie writes "If you want to solve a major engineering mystery, why not bring in some of the world's best engineers? The US Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration today said it was doing just that by bringing in NASA engineers with expertise in areas such as computer controlled electronic systems, electromagnetic interference and software integrity to help tackle the issue of unintended vehicle acceleration in Toyotas. The NHTSA review of the electronic throttle control systems in Toyotas is to be completed by late summer." We're really in trouble when NASA has no choice but to call Bruce Willis.

  

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  Magnetism Can Sway Man's Moral Compass

  Posted: March 30th, 2010, 1:00pm MDT by CmdrTaco

  Hugh Pickens writes "Discovery News reports that scientists have identified a region of the brain which appears to control morality and discovered that a powerful magnetic field can scramble the moral center of the brain, impairing volunteers' notion of right and wrong. 'You think of morality as being a really high-level behavior,' says Liane Young, a scientist at MIT and co-author of the article. 'To be able to apply (a magnetic field) to a specific brain region and change people's moral judgments is really astonishing.' Young and her colleagues used functional magnetic resonance imaging to locate an area of the brain just above and behind the right ear known as the right temporo-parietal junction (RTPJ), which other studies had previously related to moral judgments. Volunteers were exposed to transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) for 25 minutes before reading stories involving morally questionable characters, and being asked to judge their actions. The researchers found that when the RTPJ was disrupted volunteers were more likely to judge actions solely on the basis of whether they caused harm — not whether they were morally wrong in themselves. The scientists didn't permanently remove the subjects' moral sensibilities and on the scientists' seven point scale, the difference was about one point, averaging out to about a 15 percent change, 'but it's still striking to see such a change in such high level behavior as moral decision-making.' Young points out that the study was correlation; their work only links the RTJP, morality and magnetic fields, but doesn't definitively prove that one causes another."

  

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  Computer Vision Tech Grabs Humans In Real-Time 3D

  Posted: March 30th, 2010, 12:15pm MDT by CmdrTaco

  Tinkle writes "Toshiba's R&D Labs in Cambridge, UK have developed a system capable of real-time 3D modeling of the human face and body — using a simple set of three different colored lights. Simple it may be, but the results are impressive. Commercial applications for computer vision technology look set to be huge — according professor Roberto Cipolla. On the horizon: cheap and easy digitized everyday objects for ecommerce, plus gesture-based interfaces — a la Natal — and in-car safety systems. Ultimately even driver-less cars. 'This is going to be the decade of computer vision,' predicts Cipolla."

  

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  Multi-Touch Tech Firm Seeks iPad Sales Injunction

  Posted: March 30th, 2010, 11:27am MDT by CmdrTaco

  An anonymous reader writes "Taiwan-based Elan Microelectronics just filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission (ITC) alleging that Apple is infringing on its patents and violating the Tariff Act, and is seeking a ban on imports of the iPad as well as an order to stop selling the mobile device along with iPhones, iPods and Macs. The move was taken as a 'continuation of our efforts to enforce our patent rights against Apple's ongoing infringement,' the company said." Considering many iPad pre-orders have tracking #s already, I suspect it might be a little late.

  

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  Is Mimas Hiding Pac-Man?

  Posted: March 30th, 2010, 10:46am MDT by CmdrTaco

  cremeglace writes "Shaped into the likes of the Death Star of Star Wars fame by the giant crater Herschel, 396-kilometer-diameter Mimas was expected to have its warmest surface temperatures on the equator, where it was early afternoon. Instead, it was warmest in the morning (all of 92 K), giving rise in the science team's temperature-calibrated color scheme to a very large Pac-Man."

  

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  Company Invents Electronic Underpants

  Posted: March 30th, 2010, 10:31am MDT by samzenpus

  theodp writes "SIMsystem have created the world's first electric underpants that let you know that you've got issues by texting. Incontinence issues, to be more precise. The new-and-improved skivvies come equipped with a sensor strip that alerts caregivers to wetness via text message. From the technology summary: 'The SIMbox, when fitted into the individual resident's stretchpants (SIMpants), transmits sensor readings from the SIMstrip in the SIMpad® over a wireless network to the SIMserver. The SIMsystemManager software running on the SIMserver then detects key information about continence events and determines when to alert care staff about an event requiring attention.' So, who's going to start an open source project?"

  

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  Will Australia Follow China's Google Ban?

  Posted: March 30th, 2010, 10:05am MDT by CmdrTaco

  gadgetopia writes "A news report in Forbes says that China has blocked Google with its great firewall; now the world waits to see if Australia's Minister for Censorship, Senator Stephen Conroy, will do the same following his outrageous attacks on Google."

  

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  How To Build Roads To Control How Fast You Drive

  Posted: March 30th, 2010, 9:21am MDT by CmdrTaco

  An anonymous reader writes "They're the holy grail of transportation engineering: streets and highways specifically designed to encourage automobilists to drive less quickly, reducing the rates of passenger fatalities and generally encouraging a safer urban environment. And now new research shows that, if built right, they just might work. A new study out of the University of Connecticut suggests that minor reductions in vehicle speed are possible through changes in the street environment. Through the use of roadside parking, tighter building setbacks, and more commercial land uses, road designers can make drivers subconsciously drive more slowly." All of that is gonna work a lot better than my strategy of placing car-sized holes covered with twigs and branches randomly every half mile or so down the interstates.

  

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  The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 Passes Senate Panel

  Posted: March 30th, 2010, 8:45am MDT by CmdrTaco

  An anonymous reader writes "The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 passed a Senate panel, giving the president unprecedented power to issue a nation-wide blackout or restriction on websites without congressional approval. The bill, written by Sen. Jay Rockefeller [D-WV] and revised by Sen. Olympia Snow [R-ME], was drafted in an attempt to thwart internet-based terrorist threats, and gives the president this 'kill switch' without oversight or explanation. The bill is up in for Senate vote."

  

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  Man Sues Neighbor Claiming Wi-Fi Made Him Sick

  Posted: March 30th, 2010, 8:14am MDT by samzenpus

  OrangeMonkey11 writes "A Santa Fe man who claims to suffer from 'electromagnetic sensitivities' has sued his neighbor after she refused to stop using wireless devices. 59-year-old Arthur Firstenberg claims his sensitivity can be set off by cellphones, routers and other electronic devices. From the article: 'Firstenberg, 59, wanted Raphaela Monribot to limit her use of the devices. "I asked her to work with me," he said. "Basically, she refused." So he sued Monribot in state district court, seeking $530,000 in damages and an injunction to force her to turn off the electronics. "Being the target of this lawsuit has affected me very adversely," Monribot said Friday in response to e-mailed questions. "I feel as if my life and liberty are under attack for no valid reason, and it has forced me to have to defend my very basic human rights."'"

  

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  Next iPhone- Front Facing Camera, A4 Processor

  Posted: March 30th, 2010, 8:00am MDT by CmdrTaco

  As a quarter million pre-orderers wait for their iPad on Saturday, the millions of iPhone users can start speculating in earnest about the next gen phone. The rumors start by saying "It will be dubbed the 'iPhone HD' and will include a double resolution display, a front facing camera, multitasking support, and the blazing A4 processor"

  

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  Next iPhone — Front Facing Camera, A4 Processor

  Posted: March 30th, 2010, 8:00am MDT by CmdrTaco

  As a quarter million pre-orderers wait for their iPad on Saturday, the millions of iPhone users can start speculating in earnest about the next gen iPhone. The rumors start by saying "It will be dubbed the 'iPhone HD' and will include a double resolution display, a front facing camera, multitasking support, and the blazing A4 processor."

  

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  The State of the Internet Operating System

  Posted: March 30th, 2010, 7:24am MDT by CmdrTaco

  macslocum writes "Tim O'Reilly: 'I've been talking for years about "the internet operating system," but I realized I've never written an extended post to define what I think it is, where it is going, and the choices we face. This is that missing post. Here you will see the underlying beliefs about the future that are guiding my publishing program as well as the rationale behind conferences I organize.'"

  

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  First Collisions at the LHC

  Posted: March 30th, 2010, 6:39am MDT by CmdrTaco

  An anonymous reader writes "At 1:06 p.m. Central European Summer Time (CEST) today, the first protons collided at 7 TeV in the Large Hadron Collider. These first collisions, recorded by the LHC experiments, mark the start of the LHC's research program."

  

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  Self-Destructing USB Stick

  Posted: March 30th, 2010, 5:57am MDT by samzenpus

  Hugh Pickens writes "PC World reports that Victorinox, maker of the legendary Swiss Army Knife, has launched a new super-secure memory stick that sounds like something out of Mission: Impossible. The Secure Pro USB comes in 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB sizes, and provides a variety of security measures including fingerprint identification, a thermal sensor, and even a self-destruct mechanism. Victorinox says the Secure is 'the most secure [device] of its kind available to the public.' The Secure features a fingerprint scanner and a thermal sensor 'so that the finger alone, detached from the body, will still not give access to the memory stick's contents.' While offering no explanation how the self-destruct mechanism works, Victorinox says that if someone tries to forcibly open the memory stick it triggers a self-destruct mechanism that 'irrevocably burns [the Secure's] CPU and memory chip.' At a contest held in London, Victorinox put its money where its mouth was and put the Secure Pro to the test offering a £100,000 cash prize ($149,000) to a team of professional hackers if they could break into the USB drive within two hours. They failed."

  

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  Decrying the Excessive Emulation of Reality In Games

  Posted: March 30th, 2010, 4:10am MDT by Soulskill

  An editorial at GameSetWatch makes the case that game developers' relentless drive to make games more real has led to missed opportunities for creating unique fictional universes that are perhaps more interesting than our own. Quoting: "Remember when the norm for a video game was a blue hedgehog that ran fast and collected rings and emeralds? Or a plumber that took mushrooms to become large, and grabbed a flower to throw fireballs? In reality they do none of those things, but in the name of a game, they make sense, inspire wonder, and create a new universe. ... We’ve seen time and time again that the closer you try to emulate reality, the more the 'game' aspects begin to stick out. Invisible walls in Final Fantasy, or grenades spawning at your feet when you go the wrong way in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 are examples of kicking the player out of that illusion of reality, and letting them know that yes, this is a game, and yes, the rules are designed to keep you in the space of this world, not the real world. In reality, as a soldier I could disobey my orders and go exploring around the other side. I could be cowardly and turn back to base. Games shouldn’t have to plan for every eventuality, of course, but it’s not so hard to create universes that are compelling but where the unusual, or even simple backtracking, is not so unfeasible."

  

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  US-Australia Tensions Rise Over Net Filter

  Posted: March 30th, 2010, 2:32am MDT by samzenpus

  daria42 writes "Tensions between the US Government and its counterpart in Australia appear to be rising over Australia's proposal to filter the internet for objectionable content. The US government has raised its concerns over what it sees as potential censorship directly with the Australian Government. However, last night, Australia's Communications Minister Stephen Conroy denied he had had any approach from US State Department Officials."

  

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  Haptic Gaming Vest Simulates Punches, Shots, Stabbing

  Posted: March 30th, 2010, 1:30am MDT by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "IEEE Spectrum reports that University of Pennsylvania researchers have developed a Tactile Gaming Vest that smacks and vibrates as players get shot in a game based on Half-Life 2. Four solenoid actuators in the chest and shoulders in front and two solenoids in the back give you the feeling of a simulated gunshot. In addition, vibrating eccentric-mass motors clustered against the shoulder blades make you feel a slashing effect as you get stabbed from behind. If this kind of vest could be linked to a movie while you watch it, the experience would be that much more exciting. Or as one of the creators put it, 'every time Bruce Willis gets shot, you feel it.'"

  

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  EU Demands Canada Gut Its Copyright and Patent Laws

  Posted: March 29th, 2010, 11:28pm MDT by samzenpus

  An anonymous reader writes "Late last year, a draft of the European Union proposal for the intellectual property chapter of the Canada — EU Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement leaked online. The leak revealed that the EU was seeking some significant changes to Canadian IP laws. Negotiations have continued and Michael Geist has now obtained an updated copy of the draft chapter, complete with proposals from both the EU and Canada. He says the breadth of the demands are stunning — the EU is demanding nothing less than a complete overhaul of Canadian IP laws including copyright, trademark, databases, patent, geographic indications, and even plant variety rights."

  

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  US District Judge Rules Gene Patents Invalid

  Posted: March 29th, 2010, 8:56pm MDT by samzenpus

  shriphani writes "A US judge has ruled that Myriad Genetics' breast cancer gene patent is invalid. Hopefully this will go a long way in ensuring that patents on genes do not stand in the way of research. From the article: 'Patents on genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer are invalid, ruled a New York federal court today. The precedent-setting ruling marks the first time a court has found patents on genes unlawful and calls into question the validity of patents now held on approximately 2,000 human genes'"

  

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  Demand For Unmanned Aircraft Outstripping Their Capabilities

  Posted: March 29th, 2010, 6:43pm MDT by samzenpus

  coondoggie writes "Has the highly successful but disparate unmanned aircraft strategy deployed by the military outstripped the Department of Defense's ability to handle its growth? The Air Force, Army and Navy have requested approximately $6.1 billion in fiscal year 2010 for new systems and expanded capabilities. The pentagon's fiscal year 2010 budget request wants to increase the Air Force's Predator and Reaper unmanned aircraft programs to 50 combat air patrols by fiscal year 2011-an increase of nearly 300% since fiscal year 2007. In 2000, DOD had fewer than 50 unmanned aircraft in its inventory; as of October 2009, this number had grown to more than 6,800. The program's success however is causing some big cracks in the system. According to a report issued this week by congressional watchdogs at the Government Accountability Office. The military is facing a number of challenges, including training, accessing national air space and improving aircraft communications systems it must overcome if unmanned aircraft are to take their place as a central piece of the military's future, the GAO stated."

  

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  Warner Brothers Hiring Undercover Anti-Pirates

  Posted: March 29th, 2010, 5:29pm MDT by samzenpus

  An anonymous reader writes "TorrentFreak reports that Warner Brothers UK is hiring college students with an IT background to participate in an internship that will pit them against pirates on the world wide web in an effort to crack down on illegal digital distribution. The intern will literally be on the front-lines of the epic battle against pirated content, ensnaring users in incriminating transactions, issuing takedown requests, and causing general frustration amongst the file-sharing population on the Internet."

  

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  9 MA Cyberbullies Indicted For Causing Suicide

  Posted: March 29th, 2010, 4:19pm MDT by Soulskill

  Raul654 writes "Massachusetts teenager Phoebe Prince committed suicide on January 14. After her death, it was revealed that she had been the target of cyberbullying for months (and that her teachers were aware of it and did nothing). Today, nine of her classmates were indicted on charges including harassment, stalking, civil rights violations, and statutory rape. Prince's suicide echoes the earlier case of Megan Meier, who committed suicide after being cyberbullied by a classmate's mother."

  

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  Open Source, Open Standards Under Attack In Europe

  Posted: March 29th, 2010, 3:38pm MDT by Soulskill

  Glyn Moody writes "A battle for the soul of European IT is taking place behind closed doors in Brussels. At stake is the key Digital Agenda for Europe, due to be unveiled in a month's time. David Hammerstein, ex-Member of European Parliament for the Greens, tweeted last week: 'SOS to everyone as sources confirm that Kroes is about to eliminate "open standards" policy from EU digital agenda; Kroes has been under intense lobbying pressure from Microsoft to get rid of interoperability and open source goals of EU.' This is confirmed by the French magazine PC Inpact (Google translation), which also managed to obtain a copy of the draft Digital Agenda (DOC). It's currently supportive of both open source and open standards — but for how much longer?"

  

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  Lord British Claims He Owns the Moon

  Posted: March 29th, 2010, 3:14pm MDT by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "Following the recent discovery of Richard Garriott's old moon rover, the man known as Lord British has laid claim to his own lunar territory. Moon dwellers, all hail your new overlord!"

  

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  AMD's 12-Core Chip Cuts Software Licensing Costs

  Posted: March 29th, 2010, 2:55pm MDT by Soulskill

  CWmike writes "AMD released on Monday its 12-core chip code-named Magny-Cours, doubling the number of cores over the previous-generation Opteron chip. While a doubling of performance is nice, another key benefit delivered by a chip with a dozen cores may be in reducing software costs. For Matt Lavallee, director of technology at MLS Property Information Network, a company that supplies real estate data, upgrading to the 12-core Opteron chip from his current quad-core chips will allow him to cut the number of servers — and his software licensing fees. While the 12-core chip costs a little more than an eight-core chip, it's 'nowhere near as much as a SQL server costs,' said Lavallee, who has been beta-testing the new chips. MLS operates 60 servers, and Lavallee said he could theoretically cut the number of servers by half but will likely reduce his server count by a third with the chip upgrade." Reader adeelershad82 adds that AMD is hoping the new Opterons will compete with Intel in the high-volume server market.

  

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  OpenSSL 1.0.0 Released

  Posted: March 29th, 2010, 2:31pm MDT by Soulskill

  hardaker writes "After over 11 years of development since the start of the OpenSSL Project (1998-12-23), OpenSSL version 1.0.0 has finally hit the shelves of the free-for-all store."

  

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  Taking Apart the Energizer Trojan

  Posted: March 29th, 2010, 2:10pm MDT by Soulskill

  iago-vL writes "Researchers at SkullSecurity have written a tutorial on how they reverse engineered the Energizer Trojan and generated an Nmap probe to remotely detect infections. The Energizer Trojan is a great educational tool because its inner workings are very simplistic, and it makes minimal efforts to hide itself or conceal its purpose; it even lists what appears to be the author's name — 'liuhong' — in the source! The article provides an introduction to malware analysis, from infecting a test machine to debugging and disassembling the Trojan to writing the actual probe."

  

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  FCC Relying On Faulty ISP Performance Data

  Posted: March 29th, 2010, 1:28pm MDT by Soulskill

  alphadogg writes "The FCC recently used speed test results from comScore as an absolute indicator of specific ISPs' performance. Consulting firm NetForecast analyzed comScore's testing methodology and data to assess whether it accurately reflects broadband ISP performance, and to assess the appropriateness of using the data to reach general conclusions about the actual performance ISPs deliver to their subscribers. NetForecast uncovered problems on both counts. They found that the effective service speeds comScore reports are low by a large margin (PDF) because its data calculations under-report performance and place many subscribers in a higher performance tier than they purchased."

  

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  Good SAT Scores Lead To Higher Egg Donor Prices

  Posted: March 29th, 2010, 12:59pm MDT by samzenpus

  alphadogg writes "Analysis from Georgia Institute of Technology of college newspaper egg donor ads showed that higher payments offered to egg donors correlated with higher SAT scores. 'Holding all else equal, an increase of 100 SAT points in the score of a typical incoming student increased the compensation offered to oocyte donors at that college or university by $2,350,' writes researcher Aaron D. Levine in a paper published in the March-April issue of the Hastings Center Report. Concerned about eggs being treated as commodities, and worried that big financial rewards could entice women to ignore the risks of the rigorous procedures required for harvesting, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine discourages compensation based on donors' personal characteristics. The society also discourages any payments over $10,000."

  

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  New Software For Employers To Monitor Facebook

  Posted: March 29th, 2010, 12:45pm MDT by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "The NY Times reports that a new service called Social Sentry has been released to monitor employees' Facebook and Twitter accounts for $2 to $8 per employee. The service also plans to support MySpace, YouTube and LinkedIn by this summer. 'Lewis Maltby, president of the National Workrights Institute, a research and advocacy group, called the automatic monitoring of social networking a "disaster," and predicted that it would lead to people being fired for online griping, the airing of political views and other innocuous conversation. There is a tendency to react to an off-color joke or complaint that appears online more harshly than to the same comment made in a cafeteria or company picnic.'"

  

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  A User's Guide To the Universe

  Posted: March 29th, 2010, 12:03pm MDT by samzenpus

  alfredw writes "Have you ever wanted to buttonhole a physicist at a cocktail party? Do you have the burning desire to sit down with a professor and ask a laundry list of 'physics' questions about time travel and black holes? Do you want to know more about modern physics, but want to do it with pop culture experiments instead of mathematics? If you answered 'yes' to any of those questions, then you're in the target audience for A User's Guide to the Universe: Surviving the Perils of Black Holes, Time Paradoxes, and Quantum Uncertainty" Keep reading for the rest of alfredw's review.

  

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  Newzbin Usenet Indexer Liable For Copyright Infringement

  Posted: March 29th, 2010, 11:22am MDT by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "The world's most popular Usenet indexing site, Newzbin, has been trounced in London's High Court by the movie studios. Held liable for the infringements of its users, later this week Newzbin will be subjected to an injunction which will force it to filter out illegal copies of movies from its NZB index. From the article: 'Newzbin’s help guides were referred to in the decision. They state that the site can help people find what they're looking for, "whether that be obscure music, tv shows, games or movies. Think of us as a TV guide, but we're a guide that applies to Usenet." ... Newzbin has members called "editors" who help to compile reports on material to be found on Usenet. Newzbin's own documentation was used to show that the site encouraged editors to post links to movies. The verdict notes that to assist editors useful links to IMDb and VCDQuality are provided, the latter being useful to provide information about "screeners."'"

  

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  Adobe Not Worried About the Future of Flash

  Posted: March 29th, 2010, 10:43am MDT by CmdrTaco

  An anonymous reader writes "Adobe company man John Dowdell isn't worried about the future of Flash. He writes in his company blog, 'There's really no "HTML vs Flash" war. There are sure people inciting to create such a war, and individual developers may have strong practical reasons to choose one technology over another, but at corporate levels that drive strategy, all delivery channels are important Adobe territory, whether SWF or HTML or video or documents or paper or ebook or e-mag or film or packaging or whatever. Adobe profits by making it easier for creatives to reach their audiences. We're on the verge of a disruptive change that, I think, will dwarf that of the World Wide Web fifteen years ago. It was great back then when any wealthy person with a workstation in a wired environment could easily reach any creative's webpage. With these cheaper devices we'll be reaching far more people, and with pocket devices we'll be reaching them throughout the day instead of just when "logged-on." The WWW was merely a pale precursor of the excitement we're going to see, I think.' It's interesting to note that he talks about the World Wide Web in the past tense. I find it instructive as to Adobe's perspective. Personally, I'm not worried about the future of Flash either. I don't think it has one."

  

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  How Do Yo Land a Nuke-powered Mini-Cooper On Mars?

  Posted: March 29th, 2010, 10:00am MDT by CmdrTaco

  tcd004 writes "Miles O'brien narrates this video simulation of NASA's next Mars shot, which promises to out-gun all previous efforts. The Mini Cooper-sized Mars Science Laboratory, which is now named Curiosity, will crawl the Martian surface under steam from a nuclear powerplant—but it's a gentle giant compared to it's predecessors. Recent theories have emerged that previous attempts at identifying organic compounds in Martian soil may have actually cooked away any signs of life-giving elements. Curiosity will go to great pains to avoid scorching the Earth...erm...Mars."

  

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  How Do Yo Land a Nuke-Powered Mini-Cooper On Mars?

  Posted: March 29th, 2010, 10:00am MDT by CmdrTaco

  tcd004 writes "Miles O'Brien narrates this video simulation of NASA's next Mars shot, which promises to out-gun all previous efforts. The Mini Cooper-sized Mars Science Laboratory, which is now named Curiosity, will crawl the Martian surface under steam from a nuclear powerplant — but it's a gentle giant compared to its predecessors. Recent theories have emerged that previous attempts at identifying organic compounds in Martian soil may have actually cooked away any signs of life-giving elements. Curiosity will go to great pains to avoid scorching the Earth...erm...Mars."

  

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  15 Years of Microsoft Bob

  Posted: March 29th, 2010, 9:21am MDT by CmdrTaco

  harrymcc writes "Microsoft Bob — still synonymous in the tech industry with 'embarrassing flop' — shipped fifteen years ago this week, on March 31st, 1995. When the Windows interface featuring animated cartoon helpers was announced, it was hyped to the heavens and briefly accepted as a breakthrough that showed where software was going. Instead, dismal reviews and poor sales killed it after only a year on the market. At Technologizer, we're marking the anniversary with a complete look at how it came to be and why it failed so resoundingly — and how Microsoft tried again with Office's 'Clippy' and other attempts to revive the basic idea."

  

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  Raleigh Councilman Offers Child Naming Rights To Google

  Posted: March 29th, 2010, 8:50am MDT by samzenpus

  Anonymous Meoward writes "In what may be the weirdest perk proposed by a municipal authority to entice business, city councilman Bonner Gaylord has offered to name his unborn children Sergey and Larry, after the founders of Google. All he wants in return is the search giant to build its proposed high-speed fiber-optic network in Raleigh."

  

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  Will Your Next Touchscreen Be Touchless?

  Posted: March 29th, 2010, 8:41am MDT by CmdrTaco

  forgot_my_username writes "The MIT media Lab is developing a motion screen computer. It looks back at you. It measures light, and gestures and uses those to control the interface. 'Imagine every pixel on your LCD screen emitting light could also be receiving light,' said Ramesh Rakar, an Associate Professor at the MIT Media Lab. They even mention the health benefits of not touching displays."

  

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  Pirate Party Pillages Private Papers

  Posted: March 29th, 2010, 7:45am MDT by CmdrTaco

  David Crafti writes "Pirate Party Australia has made the move to host the recently leaked ACTA document in order to highlight the lack of government transparency in the negotiation process. We believe that the document is not under copyright, and we are not party to any NDAs, so there should be no restriction on us posting it. We would like to see what the government (any government) tries to do about it. If it turns out that there is some reason that we have to take it down, then we will, but if this happens, it will only validate the document's authenticity."

  

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  Fatty Foods May Cause Cocaine-Like Addiction

  Posted: March 29th, 2010, 7:00am MDT by CmdrTaco

  WrongSizeGlass writes "A new study in rats suggests that high-fat, high-calorie foods affect the brain in much the same way as cocaine and heroin. The rats that gorged themselves on the human food quickly became obese."

  

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  Canadian Libraries Want $300,000 To Buy Games

  Posted: March 29th, 2010, 6:14am MDT by timothy

  AirborneGamer writes "The Toronto Public Library is asking for $300K to build up a collection of video games. They have not said if they will buy all types of games, or leave out the M-rated ones. As the City Councilor of Toronto said about the project, 'It may be the only time a young person comes in. It can act as a magnet to attract people. Once we get them in there, you can be darn sure that our librarians will be hard at work to introduce them to everything else the library can offer.' This is a good plan actually, and besides bringing kids into the library it will bring in parents and or guardians who otherwise may not visit the library on their own."

  

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  Atom Processors Set New Record For Power-Efficient Sorting

  Posted: March 29th, 2010, 3:20am MDT by timothy

  schliz writes "German researchers have set a new record for energy efficient data sorting with a system based on netbook processors and Solid State Disks. The system, dubbed EcoSort, more than tripled the power efficiency of former record holders, leading one of its developers to claim: 'In the long run, many small, power-efficient and cooperating systems are going to replace the so far used, heavy weighted ones.' Records were defined by 'Sort Benchmark,' which was created by missing Microsoft scientist Jim Gray and was now managed by representatives of companies like Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft."

  

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  Will Your Car Tell You To Put Down the Phone?

  Posted: March 29th, 2010, 12:28am MDT by timothy

  crimeandpunishment writes with this story from the AP: "We know it's dangerous to text while driving, or talk on a cell phone without using a hands-free device. What if our car knew it as well, and warned us about it? Our cars buzz and beep at us when our seatbelts aren't buckled ... now there are new applications in the works that could lead to a warning if we're driving with a cell phone in our hand."

  

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  "Install Other OS" Feature Removed From the PS3

  Posted: March 28th, 2010, 9:37pm MDT by timothy

  Hann1bal writes "The next system software update for the PlayStation 3 (PS3) system will be released on April 1, 2010 (JST), and will disable the 'Install Other OS' feature that was available on the PS3 systems prior to the current slimmer models, launched in September 2009. This feature enabled users to install an operating system, but due to security concerns, Sony Computer Entertainment will remove the functionality through the 3.21 system software update." Updated 3:49 GMT by timothy: An anonymous reader writes "This comes as something of a surprise. Particularly because only a month ago Sony Computer Entertainment management seemed committed to the continued support of the Other OS option on the PS3."

  

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  Hubble Builds 3D Dark Matter Map

  Posted: March 28th, 2010, 6:30pm MDT by timothy

  astroengine writes "Dark matter can't be spotted directly because it doesn't interact with electromagnetic radiation (i.e. it doesn't emit any radiation and reflects no light). However, its gravitational influence on space-time can bend light from its otherwise straight path (a phenomenon known as 'lensing'). Using a sophisticated algorithm to scan a comprehensive Hubble Space Telescope survey of the cosmos, astronomers have plotted a map of 'weak lensing' events. Combining this with red shift measurements from ground-based observatories, they've produced a strikingly colorful 3D map of the structure of dark matter."

  

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  Battlefield Earth Screenwriter Accepts Razzie

  Posted: March 28th, 2010, 5:07pm MDT by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes "The New York Post has a story about J.D. Shapiro, and his gracious acceptance of a Razzie award for writing Battlefield Earth. He first offers an apology to anyone who has seen it, then he offers a funny, outsider's perspective of dealing with Scientologists, and the subsequent mangling of his script for what was once allegedly referred to by John Travolta as 'The Schindler's List of Sci-Fi.'"

  

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  Do Car Safety Problems Come From Outer Space?

  Posted: March 28th, 2010, 3:58pm MDT by timothy

  Hugh Pickens writes "As electronic devices are made to perform more and more functions on smaller circuit chips, the systems become more sensitive and vulnerable to corruption from single event upsets and this is especially true of Toyota who has led the auto industry in its widespread inclusion of electronic controls in the manufacture of their various car models. 'These circuit families store not just data, but their basic function electrically,' says Lloyd W. Massengill, director of engineering at the Vanderbilt Institute for Space and Defense Electronics at Vanderbilt University. 'In the unfortunate event of a particle flipping just the right bit, a circuit configured to carry out a benign action may be reprogrammed to carry out some unintended action.' Denise Chow writes in Live Science that some scientists are pointing to cosmic ray radiation as a plausible mechanism behind the sudden, unexplained acceleration reported to have occurred with the late model Toyotas."

  

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  Best Way To Land Entry-Level Job?

  Posted: March 28th, 2010, 2:55pm MDT by timothy

  chemicaldave writes "I'm graduating this May and have been seeking a programming position for months. It seems that the biggest hurdle to landing an interview is getting past the doorman that is HR. After reading this entry from Coding Horror describing the lack of programming candidates who can actually program, I can't help but scratch my head. I can program! (See how I put that link in?) If I can't land an interview, then even a short online evaluation of my coding skills would suffice. I just want a chance to prove myself. Alas, sending resumes to companies has rarely led to anything but an auto-confirmation email of my submission. I understand that sending resumes online is not the best method to landing an interview, but I come from a small rural school so job fairs rarely offer anything more than IT support positions let alone a programming position. It seems to me that developers are always looking for talented young programmers. We're out here looking for you too. Am I missing something?"

  

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  BBC Activates DRM For Its iPlayer Content

  Posted: March 28th, 2010, 1:47pm MDT by timothy

  oik writes "The BBC has quietly added DRM to its iPlayer content. This breaks support for things like the XBMC plugin as well as other non-approved third-party players. The get-iplayer download page has a good summary of what happened, including links to The Reg articles and the BBC's response to users' complaints."

  

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  The Technology Behind Formula 1 Racing

  Posted: March 28th, 2010, 12:43pm MDT by timothy

  swandives writes "The Australian Grand Prix F1 event is being held in Melbourne this weekend (27-28 March) and Computerworld Australia has interviewed the technology teams for BMW Sauber, McLaren Racing, Red Bull Racing, and Renault about how they run their IT systems and how technology has changed the sport. Each car has about 100 sensors which capture data and send anywhere up to 20GB back to the pits during a race. The tech guys arrive a week before a race to set everything up — the kit for BMW Sauber weighs close to 3200 kilograms — and when it's all over, they pack it all up and move on to the next event. Good pics too."

  

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  The Economics of Perfect Software

  Posted: March 28th, 2010, 11:40am MDT by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "This article takes the interesting perspective that leaving bugs in software is good — little ones, at least. This quote is particularly insightful: 'How do you know whether a bug is big or little? Think about who's going to hit it, and how mad they'll be when they do. If a user who goes through three levels of menus, opens an advanced configuration window, checks three checkboxes, and hits the 'A' key gets a weird error message for his trouble, that's a little bug. It's buried deep, and when the user hits it, he says 'huh,' clicks a button, and then goes on his merry way. If your program crashes on launch for a common setup, though, that's a big bug. Lots of people will hit it, and they will all be pissed. ... The cost of fixing all the bugs in your program and then being sure you fixed them all is way too high compared to the cost of having a few users hit some bugs they won't care about."

  

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  Rapidshare Trying To Convert Pirates Into Customers

  Posted: March 28th, 2010, 10:36am MDT by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from TorrentFreak: "The file-hosting service Rapidshare is seeking major entertainment industry partners for an online store [to which links containing infringing material will redirect]. The plan is an attempt to bridge the gap between copyright holders and users of the site who distribute infringing material. Similar to many other companies that operate in the file-sharing business, Rapidshare often finds itself caught between two fires. On the one hand it wants to optimize the user experience, but by doing so they have to respect the rights holders to avoid being continuously dragged to court. To ease the minds of some major executives in the entertainment industry, Rapidshare's General Manager Bobby Chang has revealed an ambitious plan through which copyright holders could benefit from the file-hosting service. At the same time, Chang says that his company will target uploaders of copyrighted material — whom he refers to as criminals — more aggressively."

  

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  Why Some Devs Can't Wait For NoSQL To Die

  Posted: March 28th, 2010, 9:29am MDT by Soulskill

  theodp writes "Ted Dziuba can't wait for NoSQL to die. Developing your app for Google-sized scale, says Dziuba, is a waste of your time. Not to mention there is no way you will get it right. The sooner your company admits this, the sooner you can get down to some real work. If real businesses like Walmart can track all of their data in SQL databases that scale just fine, Dziuba argues, surely your company can, too."

  

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  Are Consoles Holding Back PC Gaming?

  Posted: March 28th, 2010, 8:25am MDT by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "Despite all the excitement over Nvidia's upcoming Fermi GPU, there is still a distinct lack of DirectX 11 games on the market. This article points out that while the PC has returned to favor as a gaming platform, consoles are still the target for most developers, and still provide the major limitations on the technological sophistication of game graphics. Inside the Xbox 360 sits an ATI Xenos GPU, a DirectX 9c-based chip that bears similarity to the Radeon X1900 series of graphics cards (cards whose age means that they aren't even officially supported in Windows 7). Therein lies the rub. With the majority of PC games now starting life as console titles, games are still targeted at five-year-old DirectX 9 hardware."

  

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  Microsoft Lost Search War By Ignoring the Long Tail

  Posted: March 28th, 2010, 7:20am MDT by Soulskill

  Art3x writes "When developing search engine technology, Microsoft focused on returning good results for popular queries but ignored the minor ones. 'It turned out the long tail was much more important,' said Bing's Yusuf Mehdi. 'One-third of queries that show up on Bing, it's the first time we've ever seen that query.' Yet the long tail is what makes most of Google's money. Microsoft is so far behind now that they won't crush Google, but they hope to live side by side, with Bing specializing in transactions like plane tickets, said Bing Director Stefan Weitz."

  

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  Security Holes Found In "Smart" Meters

  Posted: March 28th, 2010, 6:11am MDT by timothy

  Hugh Pickens writes "In the US alone, more than 8 million smart meters, designed to help deliver electricity more efficiently and to measure power consumption in real time, have been deployed by electric utilities and nearly 60 million should be in place by 2020. Now the Associated Press reports that smart meters have security flaws that could let hackers tamper with the power grid, opening the door for attackers to jack up strangers' power bills, remotely turn someone else's power on and off, or even allow attackers to get into the utilities' computer networks to steal data or stage bigger attacks on the grid. Attacks could be pulled off by stealing meters — which can be situated outside of a home — and reprogramming them, or an attacker could sit near a home or business and wirelessly hack the meter from a laptop, according to Joshua Wright, a senior security analyst with InGuardians Inc, a vendor-independent consultant that performs penetration tests and security risk assessments."

  

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  Chinese Root Server Shut Down After DNS Problem

  Posted: March 28th, 2010, 4:50am MDT by timothy

  itwbennett writes "After a networking error first reported on Wednesday last week caused computers in Chile and the US to come under the control of a system that censors the Internet in China, the 'root DNS server associated with the networking problems has been disconnected from the Internet,' writes Robert McMillan. The server's operator, Netnod, has 'withdrawn route announcements' made by the server, according to company CEO Kurt Lindqvist."

  

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  Newcastle Maker Faire 2010

  Posted: March 28th, 2010, 3:31am MDT by timothy

  krou writes "The BBC covered the most recent Newcastle Maker Faire, an event which Slashdot first covered last year. From racing power tools, to making music using electric sparks, or a robot that solves the Rubik's Cube in 20 seconds, makers, crafters and hackers were out in force. YouTube has a selection of videos available, and there are some pics on Flickr. And, while it may not be a hover board, there was a self-balancing skateboard."

  

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  Slimming Down a Supercomputer

  Posted: March 28th, 2010, 12:42am MDT by timothy

  1sockchuck writes "Happy Feet animator Dr. D Studios has packed a large amount of supercomputing power into a smaller package in its new render farm in Sydney, Australia. The digital production shop has consolidated the 150 blade chassis used in the 2007 dancing penguin feature into just 24 chassis, entirely housed in a hot-aisle containment pod. The Dr. D render farm has moved from its previous home at Equinix to the E3 Pegasus data center in Sydney. ITNews has a video and photos of the E3 facility."

  

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  Israel's Supreme Court Says Yes To Internet Anonymity

  Posted: March 27th, 2010, 11:08pm MDT by timothy

  jonklinger writes "The Israeli Supreme Court ruled this week that there is no civil procedure to reveal the identity of users behind an IP address, and that until such procedure shall be legislated, all internet postings, even tortious, may remain anonymous. The 69-page decision acknowledges the right to privacy and makes internet anonymity de facto a constitutional right in Israel. Justice Rivlin noted that revealing a person behind an IP address is 'an attempt to harness, prior to a legal proceeding, the justice system and a third party in order to conduct an inquiry which will lead to the revealing of a person committing a tort so that a civil suit could be filed against him.'"

  

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  Open Source Deduplication For Linux With Opendedup

  Posted: March 27th, 2010, 9:31pm MDT by timothy

  tazzbit writes "The storage vendors have been crowing about data deduplication technology for some time now, but a new open source project, Opendedup, brings it to Linux and its hypervisors — KVM, Xen and VMware. The new deduplication-based file system called SDFS (GPL v2) is scalable to eight petabytes of capacity with 256 storage engines, which can each store up to 32TB of deduplicated data. Each volume can be up to 8 exabytes and the number of files is limited by the underlying file system. Opendedup runs in user space, making it platform independent, easier to scale and cluster, and it can integrate with other user space services like Amazon S3."

  

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  H.264 vs. Theora — Fightin' Words About Patentability

  Posted: March 27th, 2010, 6:26pm MDT by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes "Thom Holwerda from OS News has penned a rebuttal to claims from Daring Fireball's John Gruber that Theora is a greater patent risk than H.264. Holwerda writes, 'And so the H264/Theora debate concerning HTML5 video continues. The most recent entry into the discussion comes from John Gruber, who argues that Theora is more in danger of patent litigation than H264. He's wrong, and here's why.'"

  

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  A Look Into China's Web Censorship Program

  Posted: March 27th, 2010, 5:03pm MDT by timothy

  kev0153 writes "MSNBC is offering a good article explaining some of the details behind China's web censorship program. 'Google's face-off with Beijing over censorship may have struck a philosophical blow for free speech and encouraged some Chinese Netizens by its sheer chutzpah, but it doesn't do a thing for Internet users in China. Its more lasting impact may lie in the global exposure it has given to the Chinese government's complex system of censorship – an ever-shifting hodgepodge of restrictions on what information users can access, which Web tools they can use and what ideas they can post.'"

  

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  Remote Malware Injection Via Flaw In Network Card

  Posted: March 27th, 2010, 3:50pm MDT by timothy

  kfz-versicherung writes "During the CanSecWest international conference in Vancouver, members of ANSSI described how an attacker could be able to exploit a flaw to run arbitrary code inside some network controllers (full presentation; PDF). The attack uses routable packets delivered to the victim's NIC. Consequently, multiple attacks can be conducted including man-in-the-middle attacks on network connections, access to cryptographic keys on the host platform, or malware injection on the victim's computer host platform."

  

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  Yelp Founder Says "No Extortion — Just a Misunderstood Algorithm"

  Posted: March 27th, 2010, 2:42pm MDT by timothy

  Early last year, a story in the East Bay Express reported that review site Yelp's ad sales force was using hardball tactics that amount to extortion — essentially, suggesting that negative reviews would remain prominent on the Yelp page for a particular restaurant or other business, unless the business bought advertising through Yelp, in which case Yelp could "do something" about the negative reviews. In a recent interview with the New York Times (the questions seem rather softball, but they do address this issue), Yelp co-founder Jeremy Stoppelman says it just isn't so, and blames unhappiness by business owners with the review site on the site's "automated and algorithmic" review-filtering system, which he describes as "counterintuitive." Stoppelman also says that Yelp's advertising salesmen have no connection to that filtering system, which doesn't quite answer the question of whether the salesmen claimed to be able to influence the reviews displayed, as some business owners allege. Updated 22:09 GMT by timothy: As reader AKMask points out below (now corrected above), that's the East Bay Express, rather than the East Bay Examiner.

  

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  Rugged Laptop/Tablet Suggestions, 2010 Version?

  Posted: March 27th, 2010, 1:37pm MDT by timothy

  robbievienna writes "I'm currently living in the Arabian desert. Typically, unless a building has been sealed against the elements, sand and dust get everywhere. I purchased a keyboard cover for one of my laptops, and noticed that there was more accumulation on the underside than the topside. I've had sand crunk up the guts of one laptop and one tablet (Nokia N810). My coworkers who are native to the region tend to trade out their technology every six to twelve months, but I don't want to migrate data and adjust to new hardware that frequently. I was wondering what suggestions people have for working in this type of environment — both for laptops and for tablets. For reference, I work in a pseudo-secured zone where computers (phones, etc.) are not permitted to have cameras. A DVD drive would be nice, but is unnecessary. The more USB ports, the better. The last time the question was posted on Slashdot was five years ago, so I'm presuming that there are new industry leaders."

  

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  It's Time To Split Up NSA Between Spooks and Geeks

  Posted: March 27th, 2010, 12:31pm MDT by timothy

  Hugh Pickens writes "Noah Shachtman writes in Wired that most of us know the National Security Agency as the supersecret spook shop that allegedly slurped up our email and phone calls after the September 11 attacks, but not so many know that the NSA is actually home to two different agencies under one roof: the signals-intelligence directorate, who can tap into any electronic communication, and the information-assurance directorate, the cybersecurity nerds who make sure our government's computers and telecommunications systems are hacker- and eavesdropper-free. 'The problem is, their goals are often in opposition,' writes Shachtman. 'One team wants to exploit software holes; the other wants to repair them.' Users want to know that Google is safeguarding their data and privacy. The trouble is that when Google calls the NSA, everyone watching sees it as a package deal. Google wants geeks, but it runs the risk of getting spies, too."

  

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  Major 'Net Players Mulling IPv6 Whitelist

  Posted: March 27th, 2010, 11:25am MDT by Soulskill

  netbuzz writes "From this week's IETF meeting in Anaheim comes word that leading Web content providers are talking about creating a shared list of customers who can access their Web sites via IPv6. The DNS Whitelist for IPv6 would be used to serve content to these IP addresses via IPv6 rather than through IPv4. David Temkin, network engineering manager with Netflix, says: 'We're looking into the same service that Google has, where we will try to track what connectivity the user has. We're in discussions with Google, Yahoo, Netflix and Microsoft to see whether it makes sense to have a shared, open source DNS whitelist service.' ISPs are not wild about the idea."

  

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  Facebook's Plan To Automatically Share Your Data

  Posted: March 27th, 2010, 10:24am MDT by Soulskill

  Giosuele sends in this excerpt from TechCrunch: "In anticipation of a slew of new features that will be launching at f8, today Facebook announced that it was once again making changes to its privacy policy. One of the biggest changes that Facebook is making involves applications and third-party websites. We've been hearing whispers from multiple sources about these changes, and the announcement all but confirms what Facebook is planning to do. In short, it sounds like Facebook is going to be automatically opting users into a reduced form of Facebook Connect on certain third party sites — a bold change that may well unnerve users, at least at first."

  

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  Ubuntu Will Switch To Base-10 File Size Units In Future Release

  Posted: March 27th, 2010, 9:55am MDT by Soulskill

  CyberDragon777 writes "Ubuntu's future 10.10 operating system is going to make a small, but contentious change to how file sizes are represented. Like most other operating systems using binary prefixes, Ubuntu currently represents 1 kB (kilobyte) as 1024 bytes (base-2). But starting with 10.10, a switch to SI prefixes (base-10) will denote 1 kB as 1000 bytes, 1 MB as 1000 kB, 1 GB as 1000 MB, and so on."

  

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  Tiny Cube Drags Space Debris From Orbit

  Posted: March 27th, 2010, 9:21am MDT by Soulskill

  krou writes "A team from Surrey Space Centre has developed a device called a CubeSail, designed to be attached to satellites and rocket stages in order to drag space debris from orbit. CubeSail is a nanosatellite, weighing 3kg (6.6lb), and measures 10cm x 10cm x 30cm. Within its frame is a polymer sheet that unfurls itself once in space. 'The simple deployment mechanism features four metal strips that are wound under tension and will snap into a straight line when let go, pulling the sheet flat in the process.' The overall idea is that 'Residual air molecules still present in the spacecraft's low-Earth orbit will catch the sheet and pull the object out of the sky much faster than is normal.' Sir Martin Sweeting, the chairman of SSTL, who supported the research, said, 'We would be looking to put it on our own satellites and to put it on other people's spacecraft as well. We want this to be a standard, essential bolt-on item for a spacecraft; and that's why it's very important to make it small, because if it's too big it will interfere with the rest of the spacecraft.' The team is also hoping that CubeSail can act as a propulsion system, using 'solar sailing' to help satellites keep their orbits more efficiently."

  

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  NYC Drops $722M On CityTime Attendance System

  Posted: March 27th, 2010, 8:20am MDT by Soulskill

  theodp writes "New York City is reportedly paying 230 consultants an average annual salary of $400K for a computer project that is seven years behind schedule and vastly over budget. The payments continue despite Mayor Bloomberg's admission that the computerized timekeeping and payroll system — dubbed CityTime — is 'a disaster.' Eleven CityTime consultants rake in more than $600K annually, with three of them making as much as $676,000. The 40 highest-paid people on the project bill taxpayers at least $500K a year. Some of the consultants have been working at these rates for as long as a decade."

  

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  Decoding Mobile Carriers' Latest Push For Profits

  Posted: March 27th, 2010, 7:18am MDT by Soulskill

  snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Galen Gruman sifts through the 'doubleplus ungood' of this year's CTIA and Mobile World Congress to spell out 'Big Brother' mobile carriers' true designs for IT and smartphone users. From fake 4G salespitches, to mobile payment systems that hide text-messaging payment confirmation fees, to the inevitability of tier pricing for mobile data usage, no facet of smartphone use is beyond providers' latest profit-engineering push. Even IT's concerns over the invasion of mobile devices at their companies has become 'a great excuse to sell warmed-over management tools to fearful IT and security execs.' And make no mistake, mea culpas, like AT&T admitting to falling short on relieving 3G congestion, will result in additional opportunities to pad providers' bottom lines by, say, buying a $150 femtocell from AT&T to help AT&T 'solve' its problem. 'Of course, in typical Big Brother fashion, [AT&T] told the US government to stay out of wireless — meaning don't regulate prices or impose Net neutrality — while also asking the government for more spectrum. You know the contradiction: The government is good when it gives you free or cheap services but bad when it tries to impose regulation to prevent abusive behavior: doublethink ungood.'"

  

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  Will ACTA Be Found Unconstitutional?

  Posted: March 27th, 2010, 6:17am MDT by timothy

  DustyShadow writes "Harvard's Jack Goldsmith and Lawrence Lessig have an interesting op-ed in Friday's Washington Post, arguing that it would be constitutionally dubious for President Obama to adopt the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) as an executive agreement. '[T]he Obama administration has suggested it will adopt the pact as a "sole executive agreement" that requires only the president's approval. ... Joining ACTA by sole executive agreement would far exceed these precedents. The president has no independent constitutional authority over intellectual property or communications policy, and there is no long historical practice of making sole executive agreements in this area. To the contrary, the Constitution gives primary authority over these matters to Congress, which is charged with making laws that regulate foreign commerce and intellectual property.'"

  

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  The Times Erects a Paywall, Plays Double Or Quits

  Posted: March 27th, 2010, 3:42am MDT by timothy

  DCFC writes "News International, owners of The Times and The Sunday Times announced today that from June readers will be required to pay £1 per day or £2 per week to access content. Rupert Murdoch is delivering on his threat to make readers pay, and is trying out this experiment with the most important titles in his portfolio. No one knows if this will work — there is no consensus on whether it is a good or bad thing for the industry, but be very clear that if it succeeds every one of his competitors will follow. Murdoch has the luxury of a deep and wide business, so he can push this harder than any company that has to rely upon one or two titles for revenue."

  

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  Microsoft Adopts SVG For Internet Explorer 9

  Posted: March 27th, 2010, 12:48am MDT by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes "SVG has been a published standard for almost a decade. Microsoft has had nothing to do with it, even while every other major browser adopted SVG as a supported format and interface. Just in the last few weeks, though, Microsoft has thrown a surprising amount of its weight behind SVG." This means for IE 9, but it's a start.

  

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  Nvidia's GF100 Turns Into GeForce GTX 480 and 470

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 9:52pm MDT by timothy

  crazipper writes "After months of talking architecture and functionality, Nvidia is finally going public with the performance of its $500 GeForce GTX 480 and $350 GeForce GTX 470 graphics cards, both derived from the company's first DirectX 11-capable GPU, GF100. Tom's Hardware just posted a comprehensive look at the new cards, including their power requirements and performance attributes. Two GTX 480s in SLI seem to scale impressively well — providing you have $1,000 for graphics, a beefy power supply, and a case with lots of airflow."

  

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  Nvidia's GF100 Turns Into GeForce GTX 480 and 470

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 9:52pm MDT by timothy

  crazipper writes "After months of talking architecture and functionality, NVIDIA is finally going public with the performance of its $500 GeForce GTX 480 and $350 GeForce GTX 470 graphics cards, both derived from the company's first DirectX 11-capable GPU, GF100. Tom's Hardware just posted a comprehensive look at the new cards, including their power requirements and performance attributes. Two GTX 480s in SLI seem to scale impressively well—providing you have $1,000 dollars for graphics, a beefy power supply, and a case with lots of airflow."

  

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  Could Colorblindness Cure Be Morally Wrong?

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 6:50pm MDT by timothy

  destinyland writes "One in 12 men suffers from colorblindness, though '[t]he good news here is that these folks are simply missing a patch of DNA ... which is just the kind of challenge this Millennium is made for. Enter science.' But NPR's Moira Gunn (from Biotech Nation) now asks a provocative question. Is it wrong to cure colorblindness? She reports on an experiment that used a virus to introduce corrective DNA into colorblind monkeys. ('It took 20 weeks, but eventually the monkeys started distinguishing between red and green.') Then she asks, could it be viewed differently? 'Are we trying to 'normalize' humans to a threshold of experience?'"

  

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  SCO v. Novell Goes To the Jury

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 6:30pm MDT by timothy

  Excelcia writes "Closing arguments in the six and a bit year old slander of title case between SCO and Novell occurred today and the case is finally in the hands of the jury. It's been an interesting case, with SCO alternately claiming that the copyrights to UNIX did get transferred to them, and that the copyrights should have been transferred to them. 'Judge Ted Stewart said, after the jury left to begin to deliberate, that in all his years on the bench, he's never seen such fine lawyering as in this case.' We're not going to find out the results until at least Tuesday, however, as one juror is taking a long weekend. Great lawyering notwithstanding, we can all hope next week that the Energizer bunny of all spurious lawsuits will finally go away."

  

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  Energy Star Program Certifies 15 Out of 20 Bogus Products

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 5:36pm MDT by timothy

  longacre writes "A Gasoline-Powered Alarm Clock was among 15 bogus products granted the coveted Energy Star seal of approval by the US Environmental Protection Agency during a secret evaluation conducted by the Government Accountability Office. In addition, four fictional manufacturers run by fake people and marketed with crummy websites — Cool Rapport (HVAC equipment), Futurizon Solar Innovations (lighting), Spartan Digital Electronics, and Tropical Thunder Appliances — were granted Energy Star partnerships. The root of the problem: Manufacturers need only submit photos and not actual examples of their products, and they submit their own efficiency ratings, which are not independently verified by the EPA."

  

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  Nvidia Drops Support For Its Open Source Driver

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 4:50pm MDT by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes "While Nvidia is not open-source friendly (despite public outcries over the years), they have traditionally supported the xf86-video-nv driver to provide basic mode setting support and other basic functionality. However, with the 'Fermi' and future products, even that open-source support will cease to exist. Nvidia has announced they are dropping this open-source support for future GPUs and really ending it altogether. Nvidia's recommendation is to just use the generic X.Org VESA driver to navigate their way to nvidia.com so that they can install the proprietary driver. Fortunately there is the Nouveau project that provides a 2D and 3D video driver for Nvidia's hardware, but Nvidia fails to acknowledge it nor support their efforts in any form." David Gerard points out that Nouveau is going into Linux 2.6.33.

  

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  Innovators Shine At CTIA Wireless Conference

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 4:07pm MDT by Soulskill

  CWmike writes "The CTIA Wireless conference this week brought in larger crowds and more vendors than last year's event, but that probably isn't saying much, considering the recession had begun to hit hard in early 2009, Matt Hamblen reports from Vegas. The uptick pleased vendors exhibiting at the event, especially some of the smaller, lesser-known companies that sometimes offer the most interesting products, even if they never go gangbusters with the public. Matt highlights top innovative firms and products from the show, including W PhoneWatch (yes, a GSM phone watch for $199; see video), AT&T's Zero Charger (ends 'vampire draw'), Connectify (turns your laptop into a hotspot), and Line2, a Wi-Fi calling app for iPhones and iPod Touches (look out cellular voice service revenues.)" Android made quite a strong showing at the conference as well.

  

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  US House Passes P2P Ban On Federal Networks

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 3:23pm MDT by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "Recently, the US House of Representatives passed a bill in an attempt to ban peer-to-peer file-sharing applications on federal computers and networks. Similar bills have been proposed before, apparently in response to confidential government documents being found on LimeWire. The text of the bill, however, provides a very broad definition of 'peer-to-peer file sharing software,' and may extend to more than they intend (SMB? LDAP?)."

  

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  Cooling the Planet With a Bubble Bath

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 2:58pm MDT by Soulskill

  cremeglace writes "A Harvard University physicist has come up with a new way to cool parts of the planet: pump vast swarms of tiny bubbles into the sea to increase its reflectivity and lower water temperatures. 'Since water covers most of the earth, don't dim the sun,' says the scientist, Russell Seitz, speaking from an international meeting on geoengineering research. 'Brighten the water.' From ScienceNOW: 'Computer simulations show that tiny bubbles could have a profound cooling effect. Using a model that simulates how light, water, and air interact, Seitz found that microbubbles could double the reflectivity of water at a concentration of only one part per million by volume. When Seitz plugged that data into a climate model, he found that the microbubble strategy could cool the planet by up to 3C. He has submitted a paper on the concept he calls “Bright Water" to the journal Climatic Change.'"

  

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  US and Russia Conclude Arms-Control Treaty

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 2:40pm MDT by Soulskill

  reporter writes "According to a report just published by the NY Times, Washington and the Kremlin have finalized an agreement on limiting nuclear weapons and related hardware. Notably, the agreement does not restrict American development of an anti-missile shield. Quoting: 'The new treaty will reduce the binding limit on deployed strategic nuclear warheads by more than one-quarter, and on launchers by half. It will reestablish an inspection and verification regime, replacing one that expired in December. But while the pact recognizes the dispute between the two countries over American plans for missile defense based in Europe, it will not restrict the United States from building such a shield. ... The specific arms reductions embedded in the new treaty amount to a continuing evolution rather than a radical shift in the nuclear postures of both countries. According to people in Washington and Moscow who were briefed on the new treaty, it will lower the legal limit on deployed strategic warheads to 1,550 each, from the 2,200 allowed as of 2012 under the previous treaty. It would lower the limit on launchers to 800 from the 1,600 now permitted. Nuclear-armed missiles and heavy bombers would be capped at 700 each.'"

  

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  Beijing Sweetens Rubbish With Giant Deodorant Guns

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 2:28pm MDT by samzenpus

  An anonymous reader writes "Beijing plans to install 100 deodorant guns at a landfill site on the edge of the city in the hopes that it will dampen complaints about the capital's rubbish crisis.The giant fragrance sprayers will be put in place by May at the Asuwei dump site. From the article: 'Municipal authorities say they will also apply more plastic layers to cover the site in response to furious protests by local residents who have to put up with the stench when the wind blows in their direction. The high-pressure guns, which can spray dozens of litres of fragrance per minute over a distance of up to 50m, are produced by several Chinese firms and based on German and Italian technology. They are already in use at several landfill sites, but they are merely a temporary fix.'"

  

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  Fixing Internet Censorship In Schools

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 1:58pm MDT by Soulskill

  jcatcw writes "Schools and libraries are hurting students by setting up heavy-handed Web filtering. The problem goes back for years. A filter blocked the Web site of former House Majority Leader Richard Armey because it detected the word 'dick,' according to a 2001 study from the Brennan Center of Justice. The purpose of schools should be to teach students to live in a democratic society, and that means teaching critical thinking and showing students controversial Web sites, says Craig Cunningham, a professor at National-Louis University. He quoted from a National Research Council study: 'Swimming pools can be dangerous for children. To protect them, one can install locks ... [or] teach them to swim.' Web filtering also leads to inequities in education based on household income. Students from more affluent areas have access to the Internet at home and, often, more enlightened parents who can let them access information blocked in schools and libraries. Poorer students without home access don't have those opportunities."

  

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  10% Tax On Custom Software, $100M Tax Cut For Microsoft

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 1:14pm MDT by Soulskill

  reifman writes "Last week, the Washington State House of Representatives passed a bill which would impose a 10% tax on custom software while all but eliminating a $100 million yearly tax obligation that some say Microsoft is wrongfully avoiding by routing large chunks of business through an office in Nevada. 'I believe we've got an issue of justice and fairness here,' said Rep. Maralyn Chase. 'Most of the custom software purveyors are small businesses. It's a question for me of how we fairly distribute the tax burden.' 'It means that a 5 person team of entrepreneurs building a cool custom software suite, or a group of system integrators, would face a 10% tax on their services while keeping the exact same project in-house would not be taxed,' wrote Rep. Reuven Carlyle. 'It would be a massive blow to the entrepreneurial community in our state.' The bill won't become law until the House and Senate work out how best to raise another $300 million in taxes. A sales tax increase on consumers is also being considered."

  

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  New Malware Overwrites Software Updaters

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 12:31pm MDT by Soulskill

  itwbennett writes "Researchers at Bach Khoa Internetwork Security (BKIS), a Vietnamese security company, have found a new type of malware that 'masks itself as an updater for Adobe Systems' products and other software such as Java,' wrote BKIS analyst Nguyen Cong Cuong in a post on the company's blog. BKIS showed screenshots of a variant of the malware that imitates Adobe Reader version 9 and overwrites the AdobeUpdater.exe, which regularly checks in with Adobe to see if a new version of the software is available."

  

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  China's Great Firewall Infects Other Countries

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 11:50am MDT by Soulskill

  angry tapir writes "A networking error has caused computers in Chile and the US to come under the control of the Great Firewall of China, redirecting Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube users to Chinese servers. Security experts are not sure exactly how this happened, but it appears that at least one ISP recently began fetching high-level DNS information, from what's known as a root DNS server, based in China. That server, operated out of China by Swedish service provider Netnod, returned DNS information intended for Chinese users, effectively spreading China's network censorship overseas."

  

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  Home-Built Turing Machine

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 11:31am MDT by Soulskill

  stronghawk writes "The creator of the Nickel-O-Matic is back at it and has now built a Turing Machine from a Parallax Propeller chip-based controller, motors, a dry-erase marker and a non-infinite supply of shiny 35mm leader film. From his FAQ: 'While thinking about Turing machines I found that no one had ever actually built one, at least not one that looked like Turing's original concept (if someone does know of one, please let me know). There have been a few other physical Turing machines like the Logo of Doom, but none were immediately recognizable as Turing machines. As I am always looking for a new challenge, I set out to build what you see here.'"

  

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  GameStop Sued Over Lack of DLC For Used Games

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 11:06am MDT by Soulskill

  Absolut187 writes "According to IGN, 'A lawsuit filed earlier this week against retailer GameStop says the company is "deceptively misleading" its customers into believing a used game purchased from the store comes with all packaged downloadable content advertised on the box. This content, however, is only made available for free to those who purchase the game new, as the code to access the content can be only used one time.' I personally don't have a problem with publishers charging for DLC. IMHO, you put in the effort to make it, you have the right to (try) to charge whatever you want. I have the right to take it or leave it if I don't find your price fair (same goes for the main game). But what about the used game market? Should publishers be allowed to destroy the used market for their games by including 'free' DLC with a one-time use code? Should the copyright doctrine of 'first-sale' have any effect here? Or is it up to the consumer (frequently children) to realize that the product will have a reduced resale value due to the one-time nature of the DLC code? Is this any different from the use of unique 'CD-Keys' that are required for online play (e.g. for Blizzard games since 1997 or earlier)?"

  

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  What's the Best Way To Get Web Content To My TV?

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 10:24am MDT by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "It seems like there are a lot of options for getting web content onto our TVs, but which one is the best way to go? Being able to stream videos (especially through sites like Hulu), check out social networking sites, and read news would be awesome to do from my couch. Currently, I hook up my laptop to the TV, which works, but it's annoying, especially if I want to use my laptop while I am watching some videos. Some things that are important to me are: connecting to my HDTV, allowing me view anything I could in a web browser as if I were on my computer, and being easily controlled from the couch. What setups do you guys use, or what would you like to use?"

  

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  College to Save Money by Switching Email Font

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 10:21am MDT by samzenpus

  The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay has come up with an unusual way of saving money: changing their email font. The school expects to use 30% less ink by switching from Arial to Century Gothic. From the article: "Diane Blohowiak is the school's director of computing. She says the new font uses about 30 percent less ink than the previous one. That could add up to real savings, since the cost of printer ink works out to about $10,000 per gallon. Blohowiak says the decision is part of the school's five-year plan to go green. She tells Wisconsin Public Radio it's great that a change that's eco-friendly also saves money."

  

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  The Mono Mystery That Wasn't

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 9:41am MDT by Soulskill

  jammag writes "It was shocking news, or so it seemed: Miguel de Icaza, the Mono creator, was switching his opinion about his life's work — he now seemed to agree with the free software partisans who oppose his Mono work and his Microsoft connections. The story flamed across the Internet and even got picked up on Slashdot. But Bruce Byfield reports that 'De Icaza has not changed his opinions.' De Icaza calls the rumors 'a storm in a teacup.' Tracing the misinformation trail, Byfield concludes that 'the FOSS community excels at communication. However, in this instance, that ability was used irresponsibly.'"

  

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  Journalism Students Assigned To Write On Wikipedia

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 8:59am MDT by Soulskill

  Hugh Pickens writes "eCampus News reports that at the University of Denver, journalism students are assigned to write Wikipedia entries as part of a curriculum that stresses online writing and content creation, and students have so far composed 24 Wikipedia articles this year, covering topics from the gold standard to the San Juan Mountains to bimettalism, an antiquated monetary standard. Journalism instructors Lynn Schofield Clark and Christof Demont-Heinrich say students are told to check their sourcing carefully, just as they would for an assignment at a local newspaper. 'Students are leery about mentioning Wikipedia, because they might be subjected to criticism. But I tell them it's an online source of knowledge that just has some information that might be questionable, but that doesn't mean you have to dismiss all of [its content],' says Demont-Heinrich, who first assigned the Wikipedia writing to students in his introductory course taught during the university's recent winter semester. He said the Wikipedia entries didn't require old-school shoe leather reporting — because the online encyclopedia bars the use of original quotes — but they teach students how to thoroughly research a topic before publishing to a site that has over 350 million unique visitors and gets over 10 billion page views a month. 'I see journalism as being completely online within the next two to five years,' says Demont-Heinrich. 'If you're not trained to expect that and write for that, then you're not going to be ready for the work world.'"

  

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  Disputed Island Disappears Into Sea

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 8:28am MDT by samzenpus

  RawJoe writes "India and Bangladesh have argued for almost 30 years over control of a tiny island in the Bay of Bengal. Now rising sea levels have ended the argument for them: the island's gone. From the article: 'New Moore Island, in the Sunderbans, has been completely submerged, said oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in Calcutta. Its disappearance has been confirmed by satellite imagery and sea patrols, he said. "What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming," said Hazra.'"

  

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  Government Could Forge SSL Certificates

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 8:14am MDT by Soulskill

  FutureDomain writes "Is SSL becoming pointless? Researchers are poking holes in the chain of trust for SSL certificates which protect sensitive data. According to these hypothesized attacks, governments could compel certificate authorities to give them phony certificates that are signed by the CA, which are then used to perform man in the middle attacks. They point out that Verisign already makes large sums of money by facilitating the disclosure of US consumers' private data to US government law enforcement. The researchers are developing a Firefox plugin (PDF) that checks past certificates and warns of anomalies in the issuing country, but not much can help if government starts spying on the secure connections of its own citizens."

  

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  iPhone App Developed To Control NASA Robot

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 7:51am MDT by Soulskill

  andylim writes "At EclipseCon 2010 attendees were challenged to create a robotic control system to drive a NASA-provided robot across a prototypical Mars landscape. To win the EclipseCon e4-rover Mars challenge, developers could either prove their e4 programming skills by creating the best e4-Rover client, or use an e4 client to operate the Rover through a series of tasks to collect points. Software architects Peter Friese and Heiko Behrens built an iPhone client for the EclipseCon challenge which controls the robot around NASA's Mars landscape using the iPhone's accelerometer."

  

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  We're Staying In China, Says Microsoft

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 7:32am MDT by Soulskill

  ericb tips an article at the Guardian which begins: "Hopes that Google's forthright stand on censorship in China would inspire other companies to follow suit appeared unfounded today, with the move instead threatening to widen the rift between some of the world's most powerful internet companies. Microsoft, which has considerable interests in the country, including its Bing search engine, responded directly to criticism by Google's co-founder Sergey Brin, who this week accused the company of speaking against human rights and free speech. Brin, who pressed for the closing down of Google's self-censored Chinese search engine, said yesterday: 'I'm very disappointed for them in particular. I would hope that larger companies would not put profit ahead of all else. Generally, companies should pay attention to how and where their products are used.' Microsoft rejected Brin's critique, saying it would continue to obey local laws on censorship in China."

  

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  20 Years For Gonzalez In TJX Hacker Case

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 6:49am MDT by Soulskill

  alphadogg writes "Hacker mastermind Albert Gonzalez was sentenced Thursday in US District Court to two concurrent 20-year stints in prison for his role in what prosecutors called the 'unparalleled' theft of millions of credit card numbers from major US retailers. US District Court Judge Patti B. Saris announced the concurrent sentences in two 2008 cases against Gonzalez, 28, a Cuban-American who was born in Miami, where he lived when the crimes were committed. Gonzalez and co-conspirators hacked into computer systems and stole credit card information from TJX, Office Max, DSW and Dave and Buster's, among other online retail outlets, in one of the largest — if not the largest — cybercrime operations targeting that sort of data thus far. They then sold the numbers to other criminals. Gonzalez pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in two cases related to those thefts last December and the following day entered a guilty plea in a third case involving hacking into computer networks of Heartland Payment Systems and the Hannaford Supermarkets and 7-Eleven chains."

  

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  Perks & Paintball For Employees At Cybercrime, Inc.

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 6:07am MDT by timothy

  Barence writes "Innovative Marketing Ukraine was in the business of churning out some of the world's most pernicious, and profitable, computer viruses. As the company grew, it added a human resources department, hired an internal IT staff and built a call center to dissuade its victims from seeking credit card refunds. Employees were treated to catered holiday parties and picnics with paintball competitions. Top performers got bonuses as young workers turned a blind eye to the harm the software was doing. 'When you are just 20, you don't think a lot about ethics,' said one former Innovative Marketing programmer. 'I had a good salary and I know that most employees also had pretty good salaries.' The firm has been closed down after the US Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit seeking its disbandment in the federal court. But an examination of the FTC's complaint and documents from a legal dispute among Innovative executives offers a rare glimpse into a dark, expanding — and highly profitable — corner of the internet."

  

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  EA Editor Criticizes Command & Conquer 4 DRM

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 4:29am MDT by Soulskill

  Command & Conquer 4's DRM hasn't garnered Electronic Arts as much bad press and fan outrage as Ubisoft's scheme, despite being very similar. Nevertheless, it's been causing problems and frustrations for some users, including EA.com's own editor-in-chief, Jeff Green. An anonymous reader points this out: "Green wrote on his Twitter account late last week: 'Booted twice — and progress lost — on my single-player C&C4 game because my DSL connection blinked. DRM fail. We need new solutions.' He continued later, 'Well. I've tried to be open-minded. But my 'net connection is finicky — and the constant disruption of my C&C4 SP game makes this unplayable. The story is fun, the gameplay is interesting and different at least — but if you suffer from shaky/unreliable DSL — you've been warned.'"

  

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  Chinese Reactions To Google Leaving China

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 3:11am MDT by timothy

  I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Most people have already heard western media reactions to Google leaving China proper and redirecting search traffic to its Hong Kong branch, but ChinaSMACK has translated comments from average Chinese internet users so that non-Chinese can understand how the Chinese public feels. While many of them are supportive of the government on some level, they were able to obtain many comments by those critical of the government before they could be 'harmonized' (deleted) and translated those as well. The deleted comments often complain about the wumao (50 cent party), government employees who are paid 50 cents RMB per post supporting the government, and worry that the Chinese Internet will become a Chinese LAN."

  

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  Could UK Tax Breaks Pave the Way For GTA London?

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 1:43am MDT by Soulskill

  BanjoTed writes "An interesting — if tongue-in-cheek — bit of speculation is up at MCV about the possibility of a Grand Theft Auto title across the pond. 'Chancellor Alistair Darling's pledge to support the video games development industry with tax breaks could do more than simply protect the future of the UK dev sector,' the site claims. 'It could also have dictated the setting of the next Grand Theft Auto.' Its reasoning? That developers will only be eligible for new UK tax breaks if their games can be proven to be 'culturally British.' Being based in the UK alone is not sufficient for this — instead, the games in question must promote Britishness. Hence MCV's conclusion that Grand Theft Auto V may well be set in London — saving Rockstar an estimated $16m in the process."

  

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  Facebook Goes After Greasemonkey Script Developer

  Posted: March 26th, 2010, 12:00am MDT by timothy

  palmerj3 writes "The popular Facebook Purity greasemonkey script (now renamed Fluff Buster Purity) has been used by thousands to rid their Facebook feeds from the likes of Mafia Wars, Farmville, and other annoying things. Now, Facebook is threatening the developer of this script. Does Facebook have the right to govern their website's design and functionality once it's in the browser?"

  

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  Perelman Urged To Accept $1m Prize

  Posted: March 25th, 2010, 9:06pm MDT by timothy

  krou writes "The Warm Home charity in St. Petersburg, Grigory Perelman's home-town, has urged the math genius and recluse to accept the $1m Millennium Prize for solving the Poincaré conjecture, and donate it to charities. Perelman has refused to accept the award, telling one reporter through the closed door of his flat, 'I have all I want,' and another who managed to call him on his mobile, 'You are disturbing me. I am picking mushrooms.'"

  

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  Can Ubuntu Save Online Banking?

  Posted: March 25th, 2010, 6:01pm MDT by timothy

  CWmike writes with a pointer to this ComputerWorld mention of an interesting application of Live CDs, courtesy of Florida-based regional bank CNL: "Recognizing that most consumers don't want to buy a separate computer for online banking, CNL is seriously considering making available free Ubuntu bootable 'live CD' discs in its branches and by mail. The discs would boot up Linux, run Firefox and be configured to go directly to CNL's Web site. 'Everything you need to do will be sandboxed within that CD,' [CNL CIO Jay McLaughlin] says. That should protect customers from increasingly common drive-by downloads and other vectors for malicious code that may infect and lurk on PCs, waiting to steal the user account names, passwords and challenge questions normally required to access online banking." (But what if someone slips in a stack of doctored disks?)

  

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  Venezuela's Last Opposition TV Owner Arrested

  Posted: March 25th, 2010, 5:30pm MDT by timothy

  WrongSizeGlass writes "AP is reporting the owner of Venezuela's only remaining TV channel that takes a critical line against President Hugo Chavez was arrested Thursday. 'Guillermo Zuloaga, owner of Globovision, was arrested on a warrant for remarks that were deemed "offensive" to the president,' Attorney General Luisa Ortega said. This comes on the heels of last week's story titled Venezuela's Chavez To Limit Internet Freedom."

  

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  How Do You Extend Your Wireless Connection?

  Posted: March 25th, 2010, 5:09pm MDT by timothy

  ganjadude writes "So I am moving to a location where the cell signal is very poor (I don't get signal inside my house), and I have been looking at wireless extenders such as the ones that Sprint and Verizon have. I am brought down by the cost (Sprint charges monthly, Verizon $250 up front, AT&T.... well they are AT&T). Being that this is Slashdot, and a lot of us live in basements (I kid!), I assume that some of the crowd has had this issue in the past. What have you done, or what alternatives are available to someone in such a situation?"

  

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  IE8, Safari, iPhone All Fall At Pwn2Own Contest

  Posted: March 25th, 2010, 4:27pm MDT by timothy

  SpuriousLogic writes "The annual Pwn2Own contest at CanSecWest is underway, and on the first day Web browsers fell to attack. Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3.6.2 on 64-bit Windows 7 and Safari on OS X all were forced to run exploit code. To add insult to injury, an iPhone was cracked and the SMS database lifted from it." Updated 22:40 GMT by timothy: CWmike adds this interesting bit: "The only researcher to three-peat at the Pwn2Own hacking contest said on Thursday that security is such a 'broken record' that he won't hand over 20 vulnerabilities he's found in Apple's, Adobe's and Microsoft's software. Instead Charlie Miller will show the vendors how to find the bugs themselves."

  

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  International Longest Tweet Contest Seeks Entries

  Posted: March 25th, 2010, 3:43pm MDT by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes "The 1st International Longest Tweet Contest is open for submissions until April 12. It looks to be a take-off of the famous Obfuscated C Contest. So far the record is 4.2 kilobits encoded per tweet, based on exploiting the fact that Twitter actually passes the full 31 bits of ISO 10646 (the international standard that Unicode is based on), not the roughly 20.08 bits/character of Unicode itself."

  

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  Dell To Leave China For India

  Posted: March 25th, 2010, 3:00pm MDT by timothy

  halfEvilTech writes "India's Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, told the Indian press that Dell chairman Michael Dell assured him that Dell was moving $25 billion in factories from China to India. Original motives were cited for environmental concerns. But later details come up as to dell wanting a 'safer environment conductive to enterprise.'"

  

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  90% of the Universe Found Hiding In Plain View

  Posted: March 25th, 2010, 2:20pm MDT by timothy

  The Bad Astronomer writes "As much as 90% of previously hidden galaxies in the distant Universe have been found by astronomers using the Very Large Telescope in Chile. Previous surveys had looked for distant (10 billion light years away) galaxies by searching in a wavelength of ultraviolet light emitted by hydrogen atoms — distant young galaxies should be blasting out this light, but very few were detected. The problem is that the ultraviolet light never gets out of the galaxies, so we never see them. In this new study, astronomers searched a different wavelength emitted by hydrogen, and voila, ten times as many galaxies could be seen, meaning 90% of them had been missed before."

  

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  Netflix Streaming Arrives For the Wii

  Posted: March 25th, 2010, 1:59pm MDT by Soulskill

  Grant,thompson writes "As announced in January and mentioned here on Slashdot, Netflix is sending out discs today to enable streaming on the Nintendo Wii. 'Netflix has sent out emails to customers who pre-ordered the Wii's instant streaming disc, indicating that the disc will arrive in mailboxes tomorrow, and that the service will likely start within the next day.'"

  

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  BC Prof Suggests Young Children Need Less Formal Math, Not More

  Posted: March 25th, 2010, 1:37pm MDT by timothy

  DesScorp writes "Professor Peter Gray, a developmental psychologist and researcher at Boston College, recounts an experiment done in New Hampshire schools in 1929, where math was completely taken out of the curriculum of the poorest schools from the area until the sixth grade. The results were surprising; with just one year of math under their belts, the poor students did as well or better than students from better schools by the end of the sixth grade year, despite the fact that the better schools had math in their curriculum all throughout elementary school. Professor Gray thinks children are not mentally wired for the kind of formal math instruction that is taught in schools, and that we'd be better served by putting off the teaching of theory until the seventh grade. He scoffs at the notion that if children are failing with current levels of math instructions then we should double down and make them do more math in school."

  

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  Balloon and Duct Tape Deliver Great Space Photos

  Posted: March 25th, 2010, 12:55pm MDT by CmdrTaco

  krou writes "With a budget of £500, Robert Harrison used cheap parts, a weather balloon, some duct tape, a digital camera, and a GPS device to capture some great photos of the earth from space that resulted in NASA calling him to find out how he had done it. 'A guy phoned up who worked for Nasa who was interested in how we took the pictures,' said Mr Harrison. 'He wanted to know how the hell we did it. He thought we used a rocket. They said it would have cost them millions of dollars.' The details of his balloon are as follows: he used 'an ordinary Canon camera mounted on a weather balloon,' 'free software' that 'reprogrammed the camera to wake up every five minutes and take eight photographs and a video before switching off for a rest.' He also ensured the camera was 'wrapped in loft insulation' to make sure it could operate at the cold temperatures. The GPS device allowed him to pinpoint the balloon's location, and retrieve the camera when it fell down to earth attached to a small parachute."

  

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  How the TSA Plans On Inspecting Your Monkey

  Posted: March 25th, 2010, 12:27pm MDT by samzenpus

  The uncertainty of what might happen to your service monkey at an airport security checkpoint won't keep you awake at night anymore, thanks to the TSA. They have issued an easy to follow list of how they will ensure your helper monkey won't go all Planet of the Apes on your flight. Some of the security techniques used to make sure your primate is not a terrorist include: "Security Officers will conduct a visual inspection on the service monkey and will coach the handler on how to hold the monkey during the visual inspection. The inspection process may require that the handler to take off the monkey's diaper as part of the visual inspection."

  

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  Beware the King of the Patent Trolls

  Posted: March 25th, 2010, 12:11pm MDT by CmdrTaco

  superapecommando writes "If you haven't heard of Intellectual Ventures, you may want to check this out. Set up by ex-Microsoftie Nathan Myhrvold, with investments from Microsoft among others, it is basically a patenting machine – filing and buying them in huge quantities. Note that it doesn't actually use these patents – except to threaten people with. In other words, Intellectual Ventures is a patent troll – or, rather the King of the Patent Trolls. So I was interested to come across this extremely positive blog post on the company. That it is so positive is hardly surprising, since the blog is called 'Tangible IP,' and subtitled 'ipVA's blog on adding value through intellectual property.' Nonetheless, it provides valuable insights into the mindset of fans of intellectual monopolies. Here's what it says about Intellectual Ventures: 'They are an invention house, and have adopted and reinvented leading edge patent strategies to create a portfolio of their own IP which, in its own, would be of high high worth.' They don't invent anything in the proper, deep sense of the word; they merely file and buy patents – with no intent of ever making stuff or solving real-life problems."

  

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  Obama's Twitter Account "Hacked"

  Posted: March 25th, 2010, 11:30am MDT by CmdrTaco

  Oxford_Comma_Lover writes "A 24-year-old living with his mother in France was arrested for 'hacking' into Obama's twitter accounts. (Warning: WSJ does obnoxious paywall things. Your miles may vary.) Apparently he guesses the answer to a question related to password recovery in order to break into the accounts of famous people; he has no computer science training or financial motive. He posted screenshots to a few boards and twitter found out within a few hours, either from a tip or from noticing when someone from France logs onto twitter as the President of the United States. (He did not actually tweet as POTUS, but just wanted to show he could break into the account.)"

  

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  Drunk History Presents Nikola Tesla *NSFW*

  Posted: March 25th, 2010, 11:14am MDT by samzenpus

  Amazingly accurate for someone so plastered. I think all history should be taught at this level of intoxication.

  

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  How the Nintendo 3DS Might Handle 3D Display

  Posted: March 25th, 2010, 10:43am MDT by CmdrTaco

  itwbennett writes "Blogger Peter Smith weighs in with some possibilities for how the new Nintendo 3DS handheld gaming system will provide 3D gaming without the need for 3D glasses. The DSi has cameras, which means the 3DS will have to have them too if it's going to be backwards compatible. We've also heard rumors that the 'next DS' will have tilt-sensors better than the iPhone. With either the camera or tilt-sensors either of these 'faux 3D' systems would work. But since we've seen the DSi do this already, it doesn't seem likely that the new hardware will rely on the same old trick. Enter our friends at Engadget, who uncovered some details from Japanese newspapers. If they're right, the Nintendo 3DS will incorporate parallax barrier LCD screens from Sharp (see also this explanation of dynamic parallax barrier screens). This is the same technology used in a few '3D Laptops.'"

  

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  Facebook Leads To Increase In STDs in Britain

  Posted: March 25th, 2010, 10:12am MDT by samzenpus

  ectotherm writes "According to Professor Peter Kelly, a director of Public Health in Great Britain: 'There has been a four-fold increase in the number of syphilis cases detected, with more young women being affected.' Why the increase? People meeting up for casual sex through Facebook. According to the article 'Social networking sites are making it easier for people to meet up for casual sex. There is a rise in syphilis because people are having more sexual partners than 20 years ago and often do not use condoms."

  

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  US Not Training Enough Cyber Security Experts

  Posted: March 25th, 2010, 10:01am MDT by CmdrTaco

  graychase writes "Homeland Security's cybersecurity director, Richard Marshall, warns that universities aren't turning out enough cybersecurity experts and urges greater scholarship funding. 'Look at all the great football and basketball programs. They're all on scholarships. They're not playing for fun — they're playing for money.'"

  

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  De Icaza Says Microsoft Has Shot .NET Ecosystem In Foot

  Posted: March 25th, 2010, 9:20am MDT by CmdrTaco

  An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has shot the .NET ecosystem in the foot because of the constant threat of patent infringement that it has cast on the system, Novell vice-president and Microsoft MVP, Miguel de Icaza, is quoted as telling the website, Software Development Times, recently."

  

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  Will Your Answers To the Census Stay Private?

  Posted: March 25th, 2010, 8:46am MDT by CmdrTaco

  Hugh Pickens writes "James Bovard writes in the Christian Science Monitor that Americans are told that information gathered in the census will never be used against them and the House of Representatives, in a Census Awareness Month resolution passed March 3, proclaimed that 'the data obtained from the census are protected under United States privacy laws.' Unfortunately, thousands of Americans who trusted the Census Bureau in the past lost their freedom as a result. In the 1940 Census, the Census Bureau loudly assured people that their responses would be kept confidential. Within four days of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Census Bureau had produced a report listing the Japanese-American population in each county on the West Coast. The Census Bureau's report helped the US Army round up more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans for concentration camps (later renamed 'internment centers'). In 2003-04, the Census Bureau provided the Department of Homeland Security with a massive cache of information on how many Arab Americans lived in each ZIP Code around the nation, and which country they originated from — information that could have made it far easier to carry out the type of mass roundup that some conservatives advocated. 'Instead of viewing census critics as conspiracy theorists, the nation's political leaders should recognize how their policies have undermined public faith in government,' writes Bovard. 'All the census really needs to know is how many people live at each address. Citizens should refuse to answer any census question except for the number of residents.'"

  

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  Millions Continue To Click On Spam

  Posted: March 25th, 2010, 7:58am MDT by CmdrTaco

  An anonymous reader writes "Even though over 80% of email users are aware of the existence of bots, tens of millions respond to spam in ways that could leave them vulnerable to a malware infection, according to a Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) survey. In the survey, half of users said they had opened spam, clicked on a link in spam, opened a spam attachment, replied or forwarded it – activities that leave consumers susceptible to fraud, phishing, identity theft and infection. While most consumers said they were aware of the existence of bots, only one-third believed they were vulnerable to an infection."

  

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  Tracking Pedophiles By Their Typing Habits

  Posted: March 25th, 2010, 7:18am MDT by CmdrTaco

  An anonymous reader writes "Pedophiles using the internet to target youngsters could be tracked down — by the way they use a keyboard. Researchers are investigating ways to use technology which can determine a typist's age, sex and culture within ten keystrokes by monitoring their speed and rhythm." Since Phrenology hasn't exactly panned out, they gotta try something new.

  

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  YouTube Is Down

  Posted: March 25th, 2010, 6:38am MDT by CmdrTaco

  A number of readers have noted that YouTube is currently giving back 400 and 502 http errors, and has apparently been doing so for an hour or more. I suggest you use this window of opportunity to get something done: the dancing kitties will still be there when you're done.

  

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  Google Wants To Be Your Electricity Meter

  Posted: March 25th, 2010, 5:57am MDT by samzenpus

  An anonymous reader writes "Google has teamed up with a microcontroller maker Microchip to develop an API for a piece of software called Google PowerMeter, according this EE Times story. Why? Because Google wants to host all the details of the electricity and other energy consumption of people's homes. It wants to do this so that it can show people on their iGoogle homepages when and where they are consuming energy so that they can start to reduce their power consumption. The good news is that it is an opt-in service and free so you don't have to make Google your energy-monitor if you dont't want to do so."

  

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  Math Skills For Programmers - Necessary Or Not?

  Posted: March 25th, 2010, 1:56am MDT by samzenpus

  An anonymous reader writes "Currently the nature of most programming work is such that you don't really need math skills to get by or even to do well, after all linear algebra is no help when building database driven websites. However, Skorks contends that if you want to do truly interesting work in the software development field, math skills are essential and furthermore, will become increasingly important as we are forced to work with ever larger data sets (making math-intensive algorithm analysis skills a priority)."

  

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  Iron Alloy Could Create Earthquake-Proof Buildings

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 11:37pm MDT by samzenpus

  separsons writes "Researchers at Japan's Tohoku University designed a new shape memory metal alloy. The super elastic iron alloy can endure serious stretching and still return to its original shape. The scientists say that once optimized, the material could be used in everything from braces to medical stents to earthquake-proof buildings!"

  

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  New Ancient Human Identified

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 10:58pm MDT by samzenpus

  krou writes "Working on a finger-bone that was discovered in the Denisova Cave of Siberia's Altai mountains in 2008, Johannes Krause from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and colleagues managed to extract mitochondrial DNA. They compared it to the genetic code of modern humans and other known Neanderthals and discovered a new type of hominin that lived in Central Asia between 48,000 and 30,000 years ago. Professor Chris Stringer, human origins researcher at London's Natural History Museum, said, 'This new DNA work provides an entirely new way of looking at the still poorly-understood evolution of humans in central and eastern Asia.' The last common ancestor of the hominid (dubbed "X-Woman"), humans and Neanderthals seems to have been about one million years ago."

  

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  ISS To Get Man Cave

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 8:32pm MDT by samzenpus

  Nancy_A writes "There might be a new favorite hang-out for astronauts aboard the International Space Station later this year. The Leonardo Multi Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) will become a permanent module on the station, and will be brought up on the STS-133 mission, scheduled for September 2010. The new module might provide a haven for astronauts to get away from it all. 'The thought is, the PMM might become sort of a "man cave",' said Mike Kinslow, the Boeing payload manager at the Kennedy Space Center. "It won't have all the background noise of fans, computers and other equipment running like in the laboratories, so it will be a quieter atmosphere that might appeal to the astronauts during their off-duty hours.' Plus, NASA's Robonaut 2, or R2 will be brought up on the same flight. Any chance R2 could be programmed to serve drinks or bring food into the man cave?"

  

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  First Anti-Cancer Nanoparticle Trial on Humans a Success

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 6:16pm MDT by samzenpus

  An anonymous reader writes "Nanoparticles have been able to disable cancerous cells in living human bodies for the first time. The results are perfect so far, killing tumors with no side effects whatsoever. Mark Davis, project leader at CalTech, says that 'it sneaks in, evades the immune system, delivers the siRNA, and the disassembled components exit out.' Truly amazing."

  

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  Child Receives Trachea Grown From Own Stem Cells

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 5:29pm MDT by samzenpus

  kkleiner writes "Doctors at the Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) along with colleagues at the University College London, the Royal Free Hospital, and Careggi University Hospital in Florence have successfully transplanted a trachea into a 10 year old boy using his own stem cells. A donor trachea was taken, stripped of its cells into a collagen-like scaffold, and then infused with the boy's stem cells. The trachea was surgically placed into the boy and allowed to develop in place. Because his own cells were used, there was little to no risk of rejection. This was the first time a child had received such a stem cell augmented transplant and the first time that a complete trachea had been used."

  

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  GM Unveils Networked Electric Mini Cars

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 5:09pm MDT by samzenpus

  suraj.sun writes "GM introduced its Electric Networked Vehicle prototypes, one third the size of a typical car, as a way to reduce big urban auto emissions and traffic congestion. The EN-V relies on dynamic stabilization technology similar to that of the one-person Segway scooter to keep its balance, and can be operated autonomously or under manual control. In autonomous mode the EN-V is designed to use high-speed wireless connectivity and GPS navigation to automatically select the fastest route, based on real-time traffic conditions gleaned from the Web or some other networked source of traffic information."

  

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  Best Buy Offers Bogus "3D Sync" Service

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 4:00pm MDT by timothy

  Token_Internet_Girl writes "Fewer than two weeks after Best Buy offered the first Full 3D HDTVs for sale in the US, its latest Sunday circular (3/21/10) promotes a Samsung 3D TV deal consisting of a 55" 3D TV, 3D capable Blu-ray player, 2 pairs of glasses, a Blu-ray movie and Geek Squad delivery and installation. The ad states the service includes TV and Blu-ray player set-up, connection to your wireless network and 'sync your 3D glasses for an amazing experience.' The package price lists the 'geek' services as a $150 value. The offer's only problem is that there is no such thing as syncing 3D glasses. They sync automatically." Here's Best Buy Corporate's response to this hilarity.

  

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  High Fructose Corn Syrup Causes Bigger Weight Gain In Rats

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 3:30pm MDT by timothy

  krou writes "In an experiment conducted by a Princeton University team, 'Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.' Long-term consumption also 'led to abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides.' Psychology professor Bart Hoebel commented that 'When rats are drinking high-fructose corn syrup at levels well below those in soda pop, they're becoming obese — every single one, across the board. Even when rats are fed a high-fat diet, you don't see this; they don't all gain extra weight.'"

  

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  Who Should Own Your Smartphone?

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 3:13pm MDT by timothy

  snydeq writes "The great corporate barrier against employees using personal smartphones in business contexts has been breached, writes InfoWorld's Galen Gruman. According to a recent report from Forrester Research, half of the smartphones in use among US and Canadian businesses are not company-issued equipment. In fact, some organizations are even subsidizing employees' service plans as an easy way to avoid the procurement and management headaches of an increasingly standard piece of work equipment. Gruman discusses the pros and cons of going with a subsidized, employee-owned smartphone plan, which is part of a larger trend that sees IT loosening its grip on 'dual-use' devices, including laptops and PCs."

  

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  Open Source Alternative To Google Earth?

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 2:30pm MDT by timothy

  aws910 writes "Today, I fired up Google Earth to find that the 'points of interest' category had been removed, and a single checkbox is in its place. Certain layers are now entirely inaccessible. Google triggered a user revolt, but admitted fault, and promised to restore full functionality someday. In the meantime, I've found a lack of plausible alternatives. Bing seems nice, but Moonlight crashes the browser on any machine I use, and I'd rather use OSS anyway ... which made me realize there doesn't seem to be a good open-source alternative to Google Earth. Am I missing something?"

  

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  GoDaddy Follows Google's Lead; No More Registrations In China

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 1:48pm MDT by timothy

  phantomfive writes "GoDaddy has announced it will no longer register domain names in China, in response to new requirements that each registrant be photographed, and their business ID number be submitted. GoDaddy's representative said, 'The intent of the procedures appeared, to us, to be based on a desire by the Chinese authorities to exercise increased control over the subject matter of domain name registrations by Chinese nationals.'"

  

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  Microsoft To Distribute Third-Party Patches

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 1:06pm MDT by timothy

  dhiren writes "Secunia on Wednesday announced that their authenticated internal vulnerability scanner, the Corporate Software Inspector (CSI) 4.0, has been integrated with Microsoft Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) and System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM). This will hopefully pave the way for other vendors to also make use of Windows' existing patching infrastructure and eliminate the need for the multitude of custom updater applications and services that clutter most systems today."

  

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  Indian Military Hopes to Weaponize the Searing "Ghost Pepper"

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 12:50pm MDT by timothy

  coondoggie writes "The military in India is looking to weaponize the world's hottest chili, the bhut jolokia or 'ghost pepper,' according to a number of news outlets. The Bhut Jolokia chili pepper from Assam, India is no ordinary pepper. In tests first conducted by the New Mexico State University in 2008 and subsequently confirmed by Guinness World records and others, the Bhut Jolokia reached over one million Scoville heat units, while the next hottest, the Red Savina Habenero, clocks in at a mere 577,000. Scoville units are a universally accepted measure of chili hotness."

  

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  Wikipedia Explains Today's Global Outage

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 12:25pm MDT by timothy

  gnujoshua writes "The Wikimedia Tech Blog has a post explaining why many users were unable to reach Wikimedia sites due to DNS resolution failure. The article states, 'Due to an overheating problem in our European data center many of our servers turned off to protect themselves. As this impacted all Wikipedia and other projects access from European users, we were forced to move all user traffic to our Florida cluster, for which we have a standard quick failover procedure in place, that changes our DNS entries. However, shortly after we did this failover switch, it turned out that this failover mechanism was now broken, causing the DNS resolution of Wikimedia sites to stop working globally. This problem was quickly resolved, but unfortunately it may take up to an hour before access is restored for everyone, due to caching effects."

  

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  Photoshop CS5's Showpiece — Content-Aware Fill

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 11:43am MDT by timothy

  Barence writes "If you're looking for reasons to upgrade to Photoshop CS5 when it arrives, a new demo video might just persuade you. Narrated by Bryan O'Neil-Hughes, a product manager on the Photoshop team, the video shows the new content-aware fill tool, which has the potential to revolutionise the way you clean up photos. If you're not happy with an item in your picture, select it, delete it, and Photoshop will analyse the surrounding area and plug the gap as if it never existed."

  

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  Sprint Unveils HTC Evo 4G Super Phone

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 11:00am MDT by CmdrTaco

  adeelarshad82 writes "Sprint dropped a bombshell on the CTIA Wireless trade show by unveiling the most powerful Google Android smartphone ever seen in the USA, the WiMAX-powered Evo 4G. The phone runs Android 2.1 on a 1-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8650 chipset along with a helpful 1GB of built-in memory and 512MB of RAM, which is assisted by a MicroSD slot supporting up to 32GB cards. It swaps between EVDO Rev. A, WiMAX and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g on demand. The phone is dominated by a 4.3-inch, 800-by-480 65,000-color TFT LCD capacitive touch screen. There's an 8-megapixel camera on the back and a 1.3-megapixel unit on the front. The camera also records 720p, high-def video, which it can play through an HDMI out jack on the bottom. The Evo 4G weighs 170g and measures 120.5 mm by 67 mm by 13 mm. It's expected to hit the market in the summer."

  

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  NASA Gives Mars Rover Extra Smarts

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 10:21am MDT by CmdrTaco

  coondoggie writes "NASA today said it upgraded the software controlling its Mars Rover Opportunity to let it make its own decisions about what items like rocks and interesting red planet formations to focus its cameras on. The new system, which NASA uploaded over the past few months, is called Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science, or AEGIS and it lets Opportunity's computer examine images that the rover takes with its wide-angle navigation camera after a drive, and recognize rocks that meet specified criteria, such as rounded shape or light color. It can then center its narrower-angle panoramic camera on the chosen target and take multiple images through color filters, NASA stated."

  

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  Scary Smartphone Motion Control Patent Granted

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 9:36am MDT by CmdrTaco

  An anonymous reader writes "On March 16th, the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued a very broad patent on motion control in computing devices, one that seems to cover any smartphone that uses a built-in accelerometer. It was filed in July 2006 and preceded by a nearly identical patent granted in 2004 after a 2001 application. So it predates many of today's popular smartphones — the iPhone, the DROID, the Nexus One, etc. What will happen if the company that owns the patent asserts it?"

  

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  Wikileaks Receiving Gestapo Treatment?

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 8:57am MDT by CmdrTaco

  An anonymous reader writes "Wikileaks announced on Mar 21 (via its twitter account) its intentions 'to reveal Pentagon murder-coverup at US National Press Club, Apr 5, 9am.' It appears that during the last 24 hours someone from the State Department/CIA decided to visit them, by 'following/photographing/filming/detaining' an editor for 22 hours. Apparently, the offending leak is a video footage of a US airstrike."

  

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  The $8500 Gaming Table You Want

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 8:18am MDT by CmdrTaco

  Recently I stumbled upon The Sultan Gaming Table. With a price tag of over $8k, it would have to be awesome: but it has little compartments for the players and DM as well as a drop down playing surface. If you find the pricetag daunting then you are a sane person, and might instead want to look at the Emissary which starts at a "mere" $1500 and has many of the same features. Honestly I just love the idea of having my minis on a playing surface underneath the dinner table. I ought to be allowed to expense one of these. I also wish they had more pictures and fewer renderings on the site.

  

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  Sergey Brin on Google and China

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 7:36am MDT by CmdrTaco

  yuhong writes "The NY Times has interview with Sergey Brin on Google and China. A few quotes from it: 'Mr. Brin lived in the Soviet Union until he was nearly 6 years old, and he said the experience of living under a totalitarian system that censored political speech influenced his thinking — and Google's policy. "It has definitely shaped my views, and some of my company's views," he said.' Yes, business is personal, especially these days."

  

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  Full ACTA Leak Online

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 6:53am MDT by CmdrTaco

  An anonymous reader writes "Following months of small Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement leaks, the full consolidated ACTA text has now been posted online. The consolidated text provides a clear indication of how the negotiations have altered earlier proposals (see this post for links to the early leaks) as well as the first look at several other ACTA elements. For example, last spring it was revealed that several countries had proposed including a de minimus provision to counter fears that the border measures chapter would lead to iPod searching border guards. The leak shows there are four proposals on the table."

  

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  Google Wins European Trademark Victory

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 6:33am MDT by timothy

  adeelarshad82 writes "A European court has ruled in Google's favor, saying that allowing advertising customers to use the names of other companies as search keywords does not represent a trademark violation. The court also went on to say that Google's AdWords program is protected by a European law governing Internet hosting services. Google's main line of defense was claiming that companies that want to extend trademark law to keywords are really interested in 'controlling and restricting the amount of information that users may see in response to their searches.' The decision is the first in a series of decisions from the court about how trademark rights can be used to restrict information available to users. Google is currently battling several trademark keyword cases in the US, including a case against Rosetta Stone, Inc."

  

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  Commodore 64 Primed For a Comeback In June

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 6:09am MDT by timothy

  angry tapir writes "The Commodore 64 is getting a makeover, with a new design and some of the latest computing technologies, as the brand gets primed for a comeback. The revamped computer will be available through the Commodore USA online store, which is set to open June 1. The computer will be an all-in-one keyboard, with Intel's 64-bit quad-core microprocessors and 3D graphics capabilities."

  

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  DarkPlaces Dev Forest Hale Corrects Nexuiz GPL Stance

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 4:44am MDT by Soulskill

  Time Doctor writes "There has been a lot of information going around about Nexuiz, the GPL, and what the Nexuiz leadership has done. A new interview has gone up with DarkPlaces developer Forest Hale to set things straight. Quoting: 'The original plan was to contact every developer and relicense the Nexuiz 2.5.2 GPL gamecode sources for this title, to ensure authentic gameplay and return some important features to the community for the benefit of everyone. However this gamecode re-licensing attempt did not go well; with the former developers making claims of violations there was no choice but to re-implement the gamecode from scratch on non-GPL sources. As a result there will be no ongoing code contributions back to the community, and the gameplay may differ more than originally planned. This is a very unfortunate outcome but has no significant impact on development. To make this perfectly clear – the game is being reimplemented from scratch; all they share is a name.'"

  

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  UK Space Agency Launched

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 3:28am MDT by timothy

  krou writes "Today saw the launch of the new UK Space Agency (UKSA), which will officially come into being on the 1st of April. Its stated goal is to lead to more coherency in space policy, and better decision making, by gradually assuming control over the various budgets and management functions of various government departments and science funding councils. Lord Drayson, the minister for science and innovation, said that 'People in the UK are not aware of just how good Britain is both at space research and in terms of our space industry; [a space agency] is going to make people more aware of that. But in practical terms, it's going to make the decision-making by government in all aspects of space policy much more joined up, better co-ordinated — a single point within government which has responsibility for making sure that we get everything in alignment such that the space research we do, the space industry that we're building, fulfils its true potential.' The government also announced that it is adding £24m to the £16m put up by business to create an International Space Innovation Centre at Harwell in Oxfordshire."

  

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  The Unsung Heroes of PC Gaming History

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 2:06am MDT by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "The history of PC gaming is littered with many well-known and highly regarded titles, but what about the titles you mightn't have heard of? This list of the top games in the history of the PC includes the usual suspects, such as Half-Life and Doom, but also some often overlooked PC games including such classics as Elite, the space trading RPG developed in 1984 by two college friends from Cambridge for the Acorn and BB Micro systems. The game used a truly elegant programming hack to create over 200 different worlds to explore while using 32kb of memory, all with 3D wireframes. Also in the list is Robot War, which required players to actually code the participants, and one of the first online multiplayer RPGs, Neverwinter Nights, which introduced many of the developer and user behaviors, such as custom guilds, that have made modern RPGs so popular." What's your favorite classic game that always gets overlooked in these kinds of lists? My vote goes for Star Control 2.

  

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  Tridgell Recommends Reading Software Patents

  Posted: March 24th, 2010, 12:35am MDT by timothy

  H4x0r Jim Duggan writes "Andrew Tridgell rejected the common fears about triple damages: 'If you've got one lot of damages for patent infringement, what would happen to the project? It's dead. If it gets three lots of damages for patent infringement, what happens to the project? It's still dead.' Tridge then explains the right way to read a patent and build a legal defense: 'That first type of defence is really the one you want, it's called: non-infringement. And that is: "we don't do that. The patent says X, we don't do X, therefore go away, sue someone else, it's not relevant for us." That's the defence you want. [...] Next one, prior art: [...] Basically the argument is: somebody else did that before. It's a very, very tricky argument to get right. Extremely tricky, and it is the most common argument bandied about in the free software community. And if you see it in the primary defence against a patent, you should cringe because it is an extremely unsafe way of doing things.' There are even some tips in the talk specifically for Slashdotters."

  

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  New Legislation Would Crack Down On Online Criminal Havens

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 9:43pm MDT by timothy

  Hugh Pickens writes "The Hill reports that Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) have introduced a bill that would penalize foreign countries that fail to crack down on cyber criminals operating within their borders. Under the bill the White House would have the responsibility of identifying countries that pose cyber threats and the president would have to present to Congress in an annual report. Countries identified as 'hacker havens' would then have to develop plans of action to combat cybercrimes or risk cuts to their US export dollars, foreign-direct investment funds and trade assistance grants. Numerous American employers, including Cisco, HP, Microsoft, Symantec, PayPal, eBay, McAfee, American Express, Mastercard and Visa, as well as Facebook, are supporting the Senators' legislation."

  

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  Ubuntu's "Lucid Lynx" Enters Beta

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 8:32pm MDT by timothy

  ActionDesignStudios writes "The upcoming release of Ubuntu, titled 'Lucid Lynx,' has just entered the beta cycle. Alongside the usual desktop and server versions, a special version has been released that is designed to run on Amazon's EC2 cloud service. This release of Ubuntu does away with the brown 'Human' Gnome theme we've all become accustomed to, replaced by a new version Canonical says is inspired by light. The new release also includes much better integration with social networking services such as Twitter, identi.ca and Facebook, among others."

  

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  No More Firefox For Windows Mobile

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 6:40pm MDT by timothy

  angry tapir writes "Mozilla has decided to stop development of a version of its Firefox mobile Web browser for phones running Windows Mobile. The reason is that Microsoft has closed the door to native applications on smartphones running its new Windows Phone 7 Series software. More reasoning can be found in a blog post by Stuart Parmenter, director of Mobile Engineering at Mozilla."

  

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  How To Evade URL Filters With (Not-So) Fancy Math

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 5:22pm MDT by timothy

  Trailrunner7 writes "In their constant quest to find new and interesting ways to abuse the Internet, attackers recently have begun using an old technique to obfuscate URLs and IP addresses to bypass URL filters and direct users to malicious sites. The technique takes advantage of the fact that modern browsers will allow users to specify IP addresses in formats other than base 10. So a typical IP address that looks something like this — 192.10.10.1 — can also be written in base 8, hexadecimal or a handful of other formats, and the browser will recognize it and take the user to the specified site. What is interesting though is that due to the relative obscurity of using such methods to denote an IP or URL, it is quite feasible that existing security products do not correctly identify the URLs as valid or flag them as malicious when they point to existing known bad websites."

  

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  US Lawmakers Eyeing National ID Card

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 4:40pm MDT by timothy

  According to Wired (and no big surprise, considering the practicalities of implementing massive changes in medical finance), US lawmakers "are proposing a national identification card, a 'fraud-proof' Social Security card required for lawful employment in the United States. The proposal comes as the Department of Homeland Security is moving toward nationalizing driver licenses."

  

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  China Hits Back At Google

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 3:57pm MDT by CmdrTaco

  sopssa writes "After Google yesterday started redirecting google.cn users to their uncensored Hong Kong-tbased google.com.hk servers, the Chinese government has now hit back at Google by restricting access to Google's Hong Kong servers. 'On Tuesday mainland China users could not see uncensored Hong Kong-based content after the government either disabled certain searches or blocked links to results.' China Mobile, the largest wireless carrier in the country, has also been approached by the Chinese government to cancel a contract with Google about having google.cn on their mobile home page for search. China Unicom, the second largest carrier in China, has also either postponed or killed the launch of Android-based mobile phones in the country."

  

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  Opera Mini For iPhone Submitted To App Store Today

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 3:14pm MDT by CmdrTaco

  An anonymous reader writes "Opera Mini for iPhone was officially submitted to the Apple iPhone App store today. A select few first saw it at Mobile World Congress 2010 in February. Now, the 'fast like a rocket' browser is taking its first big step towards giving users a new way to browse on the iPhone."

  

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  Neptune May Have Eaten a Planet and Stolen Its Moon

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 2:36pm MDT by CmdrTaco

  jitendraharlalka noted a piece about the origins of Neptune. There is a theory now that it once ate a super-earth in the outer solar system, and kept its moon as some sort of macabre trophy to make sure that Mars and Venus didn't get any big ideas.

  

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  Laptops Computers Detect and Monitor Earthquakes

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 1:54pm MDT by CmdrTaco

  Pickens writes "Live Science reports that 1,000 people from 61 countries have signed up with the Quake-Catcher Network to take advantage of built-in accelerometers in newer laptops that transmit data about earthquakes to researchers at UC Irvine and Stanford University. "It's providing additional data that can be fed into the seismic networks," says Elizabeth Cochran, a UC Irvine geoscientist. "It also allows us to record earthquakes at a scale that we haven't been able to before because of the cost." Cochran came up with the idea for the Quake-Catcher Network when she learned that most new laptops come equipped with accelerometers designed to switch off the hard drive if the laptop is dropped. "I figured that we could easily tap into this data and use it to record earthquakes." While traditional seismic monitors can detect earthquakes of magnitude 1.0 or less, the lowest magnitude the Quake-Catcher Network can detect is about 4.0, a moderate quake much like the one that hit LA on March 16. But what the network lacks in sensitivity, it makes up for in price as traditional seismic sensors cost $5,000 to $10,000 apiece. "Ideally we would have seismometers in every building, or at least on every block. And in tall buildings, we'd have multiple sensors [on different floors]," says Cochran. "That way, we would be able to actually get much higher detail, images of how the ground shakes during an earthquake.""

  

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  Laptop Computers Detect and Monitor Earthquakes

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 1:54pm MDT by CmdrTaco

  Pickens writes "Live Science reports that 1,000 people from 61 countries have signed up with the Quake-Catcher Network to take advantage of built-in accelerometers in newer laptops that transmit data about earthquakes to researchers at UC Irvine and Stanford University. 'It's providing additional data that can be fed into the seismic networks,' says Elizabeth Cochran, a UC Irvine geoscientist. 'It also allows us to record earthquakes at a scale that we haven't been able to before because of the cost.' Cochran came up with the idea for the Quake-Catcher Network when she learned that most new laptops come equipped with accelerometers designed to switch off the hard drive if the laptop is dropped. 'I figured that we could easily tap into this data and use it to record earthquakes.' While traditional seismic monitors can detect earthquakes of magnitude 1.0 or less, the lowest magnitude the Quake-Catcher Network can detect is about 4.0, a moderate quake much like the one that hit LA on March 16. But what the network lacks in sensitivity, it makes up for in price as traditional seismic sensors cost $5,000 to $10,000 apiece. 'Ideally we would have seismometers in every building, or at least on every block. And in tall buildings, we'd have multiple sensors [on different floors],' says Cochran. 'That way, we would be able to actually get much higher detail images of how the ground shakes during an earthquake.'"

  

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  Does This Headline Know You're Reading It?

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 1:15pm MDT by CmdrTaco

  An anonymous reader writes "Not yet, but it could. German artificial intelligence researchers are combining JavaScript with eye-tracking hardware to create 'text 2.0,' which 'infers user intentions.' Unimportant words also fade out while you're skimming the text, and a bookmark automatically appears if you glance away. It can pronounce the words you're reading, and reading certain words can trigger the appearance of footnotes or even translations, biographies, definitions, and sound effects or animations, almost like the truly interactive books in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. 'With the help of an eye tracker, Text 2.0 follows your progress and presents effects just in time,' the researchers explain in a video. Meanwhile, DFKI has already created a free 'Processing Easy Eye Tracker plugin' (or PEEP) to manipulate windows with what they call 'gaze-controlled tab expose,' while there's speculation similar technology may be adopted by Apple. Apple has already purchased Tobii's eye-tracking hardware, and 'Whether these are for internal research only or for a future product, Apple is characteristically not saying.'"

  

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  RPG Heroes Are Jerks

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 12:27pm MDT by samzenpus

  I have to give him credit for smashing the vases to get the medicine, and finding the legendary wedding dress among the rags. However, he forgot to kill the peasants for xp and you should always check the fireplace for any remaining food.

  

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  SSD Price Drops Signaling End of Spinning Media?

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 11:46am MDT by CmdrTaco

  gjt writes "When Intel and OCZ recently announced new 'affordable' Solid State Disk drives — offering a meager 32-40GB — we initially yawned. But, then we took a closer look at the press releases and the in-progress research and development in SSD technology and opened our eyes. While the new drives aren't affordable on a cost per gigabyte basis for everyone, it does set a precedent — and most importantly a barometer price of $100. And it really does start the death clock for hard drive technology."

  

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  Gamers Pay To Play With Girls

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 11:00am MDT by CmdrTaco

  taucross writes "A new site allows lonely Xbox 360 gamers to pay a prescribed fee for a few minutes of game time with one of the 'PlayDates', a girl who is paid to play video games. Gamers can choose to have a 'flirty' or 'dirty' experience with one of the PlayDates. Is this what we meant when we said we wanted 'adult gaming'?"

  

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  Supersizing the "Last Supper"

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 10:38am MDT by samzenpus

  gandhi_2 writes "A pair of sibling scholars compared 52 artists' renditions of 'The Last Supper', and found that the size of the meal painted had grown through the years. Over the last millennium they found that entrees had increased by 70%, bread by 23%, and plate size by 65.6%. Their findings were published in the International Journal of Obesity. From the article: 'The apostles depicted during the Middle Ages appear to be the ascetics they are said to have been. But by 1498, when Leonardo da Vinci completed his masterpiece, the party was more lavishly fed. Almost a century later, the Mannerist painter Jacobo Tintoretto piled the food on the apostles' plates still higher.'"

  

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  Research Lets You Type Words By Thought Alone

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 10:15am MDT by StoneLion

  An anonymous reader writes "How about typing on a computer just by thinking about it? The downside is you have to wear a skull cap with electrodes that capture your brain waves like an EEG machine. According to this EE Times story a team of researchers from Belgium and the Netherlands has presented Mind Speller, a thought-to-text device intended to help people with movement disabilities. The system does rely on a lot of processing on a remote computer but it is a wireless system. And these thought-to-computer systems have wider applicability than medical support. One of the research groups involved in this development has already looked at wireless electroencephalography (EEG) to enable measures of emotion to be fed back into computer games."

  

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  Research Lets You Type Words By Thought Alone

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 10:15am MDT by StoneLion

  An anonymous reader writes "How about typing on a computer just by thinking about it? The downside is you have to wear a skull cap with electrodes that capture your brain waves like an EEG machine. According to this EE Times story, a team of researchers from Belgium and the Netherlands has presented Mind Speller, a thought-to-text device intended to help people with movement disabilities. The system does rely on a lot of processing on a remote computer, but it is a wireless system. And these thought-to-computer systems have wider applicability than medical support. One of the research groups involved in this development has already looked at wireless electroencephalography (EEG) to enable measures of emotion to be fed back into computer games."

  

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  Oracle/Sun Enforces Pay-For-Security-Updates Plan

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 9:35am MDT by CmdrTaco

  An anonymous reader writes "Recently, the Oracle/Sun conglomerate has denied public download access to all service packs for Solaris unless you have a support contract. Now, paying a premium for gold-class service is nothing new in the industry, but withholding critical security updates smacks of extortion. While this pay-for-play model may be de rigueur for enterprise database systems, it is certainly not the norm for OS manufactures. What may be more interesting is how Oracle/Sun is able to sidestep GNU licensing requirements since several of the Solaris cluster packs contain patches to GNU utilities and applications."

  

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  Bill Gates May Build Small Nuclear Reactor

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 8:55am MDT by CmdrTaco

  Hugh Pickens writes "TerraPower, an energy start-up backed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, is in discussions with Toshiba Corp. to develop a small-scale nuclear reactor that would represent a long-term bet to make nuclear power safer and cheaper. Toshiba confirmed it is in preliminary discussions with TerraPower, a unit of Intellectual Ventures, a patent-holding concern partially funded by Gates and Toshiba spokesman Keisuke Ohmori says the two sides are talking about how they could collaborate on nuclear technology although discussions are still in early stages and that nothing has been decided on investment or development. TerraPower has publicly said its Traveling Wave Reactor could run for decades on depleted uranium without refueling (PDF) or removing spent fuel from the device. The reactor, the company has said, could be safer, cheaper and more socially acceptable than today's reactors. Gates's recent focus on nuclear power has been fueled by an interest in developing new power systems for developing countries where he says that new energy solutions are needed to combat climate change. Terrapower faces a lengthy, multi-year process to get its "traveling wave" reactor concept reviewed by regulators but if TerraPower succeeds in advancing its plans, it could provide an alternative blueprint for the nuclear industry at a time when new reactors may be coming online."

  

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  Malware Delivered By Yahoo, Fox, Google Ads

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 8:14am MDT by CmdrTaco

  WrongSizeGlass writes "CNET is reporting that Avast has tracked over 2.6 million instances of malware that have been served up to unsuspecting web surfers since last December by ad services such as Yahoo's Yield Manager, Fox Audience Network's Fimserve.com and even some from Google's DoubleClick. Some high-profile sites include The New York Times, Drudge Report.com, TechCrunch and WhitePages.com. The practice has been dubbed 'malvertising.' I usually suspect the users of 'careless web activity' when I delouse a PC, but now I'm going to have to give some the benefit of the doubt."

  

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  The Biggest Cloud Providers Are Botnets

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 7:35am MDT by CmdrTaco

  Julie188 writes "Google is made up of 500,000 systems, 1 million CPUs and 1,500 gigabits per second (Gbps) of bandwidth, according to cloud service provider Neustar. Amazon comes in second with 160,000 systems, 320,000 CPUs and 400 Gbps of bandwidth, while Rackspace offers 65,000 systems, 130,000 CPUs and 300 Gbps. But these clouds are dwarfed by the likes of the really big cloud services, otherwise known as botnets. Conficker controls 6.4 million computer systems in 230 countries, with more than 18 million CPUs and 28 terabits per second of bandwidth."

  

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  Nintendo Announces 3D Successor of Nintendo DS

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 6:51am MDT by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "Nintendo has posted a press release (PDF) titled 'Launch of New Portable Game Machine,' promoting a new, upcoming handheld game console temporarily named the 'Nintendo 3DS,' which will feature 3D graphics without the need for any sort of special glasses. It will be backward-compatible with DS and DSi games." An article at Kotaku speculates on how the 3D tech will work. The launch window is vague — sometime between April 2010 and March 2011. More details will be revealed at E3 in June.

  

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  Recommendations For C++/OpenGL Linux Tutorials?

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 6:31am MDT by timothy

  QuaveringGrape writes "After a few years of Python I've recently been trying to expand my programming knowledge into the realm of compiled languages. I started with C, then switched over to C++. A friend and longtime OpenGL programmer told me about NeHe's tutorials as a good step after the command-line programs started to get old, but there's a problem: all the tutorials are very Windows-based, and I've been using Linux as my single platform for a while now. I'm looking for suggestions for tutorials that are easy to learn, without being dumbed down or geared towards non-programmers."

  

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  Senate Votes To Replace Aviation Radar With GPS

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 6:12am MDT by timothy

  plover writes "The US Senate on Monday passed by a 93-0 margin a bill that would implement the FAA's NextGen plan to replace aviation radar with GPS units. It will help pay for the upgrade by increasing aviation fuel taxes on private aircraft. It will require two inspections per year on foreign repair stations that work on US planes. And it will ban pilots from using personal electronics in the cockpit. This just needs to be reconciled with the House version and is expected to soon become law. This was discussed on Slashdot a few years ago."

  

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  Tax-Free IT Repairs Proposed For the UK

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 5:02am MDT by timothy

  judgecorp writes "Removing tax from computer repairs could have a real impact on the IT industry's carbon footprint, according to a petition of the UK government. Old computer equipment often ends up in landfill, or in toxic illegal re-cycling centers in developing countries, because users think it is not cost-effective to repair it. Making repairs tax free could be a simple bit of financial engineering to encourage skilled jobs and keep electronics out of the waste stream, says the author of the campaign."

  

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  Later School Start For Teenagers Brings Drop In Absenteeism

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 3:37am MDT by timothy

  krou writes "Monkseaton High School in North Tyneside, UK, began an experiment in October that saw its 800 pupils ranging in age from 13-19 attend school an hour later than normal, at 10am. Early results indicate that 'general absence has dropped by 8% and persistent absenteeism by 27%.' Head teacher Paul Kelley supported the idea because he believed that 'it was now medically established that it was better for teenagers to start their school day later in terms of their mental and physical health and how they learn better in the afternoon', and he now claims that the children are becoming 'happier better educated teenagers' as a result of the experiment. The experiment is being overseen by Oxford neuroscience professor Russell Foster. 'He performed memory tests on pupils at the school which suggested the more difficult lessons should take place in the afternoon. He said young people's body clocks may shift as they reach their teenage years — meaning they want to get up later not because they are lazy but because they are biologically programmed to do.'"

  

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  Germany Warns Against Using Firefox

  Posted: March 23rd, 2010, 12:51am MDT by timothy

  jayme0227 writes "Due to the recent exploit in Firefox, Germany has warned against its use. This comes a couple months after Germany advised against using IE. Perhaps we should start taking odds as to which browser will be next." Note: the warning (from the Federal Office for Information Security) is provisional, and should be rendered moot by the release later this month of 3.6.2.

  

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  First Flight For SpaceShip Two

  Posted: March 22nd, 2010, 9:55pm MDT by timothy

  mknewman writes "Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane took to the air for the first time this [Monday] morning from California's Mojave Air and Space Port. The craft, which has been christened the VSS Enterprise, remained firmly attached to its WhiteKnightTwo carrier airplane throughout the nearly three-hour test flight. It will take many months of further tests before SpaceShipTwo actually goes into outer space. Nevertheless, today's outing marks an important milestone along a path that could take paying passengers to the final frontier as early as 2011 or 2012."

  

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  A Broadband Survey That Asks the Right Questions

  Posted: March 22nd, 2010, 6:52pm MDT by timothy

  Lauren Weinstein writes "I've just deployed the first ever Broadband Survey under the auspices of GCTIP, which asks questions that the FCC neglected to ask about service types, promised vs. actual broadband speeds, user satisfaction (or lack thereof) with their ISPs and local ISP competition, etc. I'm already finding the detailed comments many persons are leaving on the survey form to be extremely illuminating and with sufficient participation I'm hoping my reports from this data will be useful to the Internet community broadly."

  

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  Is the Line-in Jack On the Verge of Extinction?

  Posted: March 22nd, 2010, 5:59pm MDT by timothy

  SlashD0tter writes "Many older sound cards were shipped with line-out, microphone-in, and a line-in jacks. For years I've used such a line-in jack on an old Windows 2000 dinosaur desktop that I bought in 2000 (600 Mhz PIII) to capture the stereo audio signal from an old Technics receiver. I've used this arrangement to recover the audio from a slew of old vinyl LPs and even a few cassettes using some simple audio manipulating software from a small shop in Australia. I've noticed only recently, unfortunately, that all of the four laptops I've bought since then have omitted a line-in jack, forcing me to continue keeping this old desktop on life support. I've looked around for USB sound cards that include a line-in jack, but I haven't been too impressed by the selection. Is the line-in jack doomed to extinction, possibly due to lobbying from vested interests, or are there better thinking-outside-the-box alternatives available?"

  

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  Quantum Film Might Replace CMOS Sensors

  Posted: March 22nd, 2010, 5:22pm MDT by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes "Quantum film could replace conventional CMOS image sensors in digital cameras and are four times more sensitive than photographic film. The film, which uses embedded quantum dots instead of silver grains like photographic film, can image scenes at higher pixel resolutions. While the technology has potential for use in mobile phones, conventional digital cameras would also gain much higher resolution sensors by using quantum film material." The original (note: obnoxious interstitial ad) article at EE Times adds slightly more detail.

  

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  Verizon Set To Launch Mobile Payment Service

  Posted: March 22nd, 2010, 4:36pm MDT by Soulskill

  CWmike writes "Verizon Wireless announced on Monday that customers will soon be able to charge up to $25 a month in online purchases to their accounts. The service, based on technology created by Danal, will require text messaging-enabled phones, and that purchases be made from Verizon-approved online stores, which include game sites and social networks. It will require that customers click a BilltoMobile button during checkout from a participating online Web site. Users will be asked to input their mobile numbers and mobile billing zip codes for authentication. Once the user is authenticated, a one-time passcode will sent to his or her phone. The number is then input into the online checkout window. At that point, the transaction is complete and the charge will appear on the customer's monthly phone bill. GigaOm writes, 'If Verizon can get people accustomed to putting in their phone numbers instead of credit cards while shopping online, then it could own a critical element in building an application and services platform that spans the wired and wireless world ... Much like Apple has such a large stake in the mobile application and commerce space today because it has millions of credit cards in iTunes, Verizon could be expanding its own payments information for a similar goal.'"

  

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  Planned Nuclear Reactors Will Destroy Atomic Waste

  Posted: March 22nd, 2010, 4:14pm MDT by Soulskill

  separsons writes "A group of French scientists are developing a nuclear reactor that burns up actinides — highly radioactive uranium isotopes. They estimate that 'the volume of high-level nuclear waste produced by all of France’s 58 reactors over the past 40 years could fit in one Olympic-size swimming pool.' And they're not the only ones trying to eliminate atomic waste: Researchers at the University of Texas in Austin are working on a fusion-fission reactor. The reactor destroys waste by firing streams of neutrons at it, reducing atomic waste by up to 99 percent!"

  

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  EA To Charge For Game Demos

  Posted: March 22nd, 2010, 3:55pm MDT by Soulskill

  Kohato brings word of a new Electronic Arts marketing strategy that aims to start monetizing game demos. According to industry analyst Michael Patcher after an EA investor visit, the publisher will start selling "premium downloadable content" prior to a game's release for $10-$15 that is essentially a longer-than-usual demo. Patcher said, "I think that the plan is to release PDLC at $15 that has 3-4 hours of gameplay, so [it has] a very high perceived value, then [EA will] take the feedback from the community (press and players) to tweak the follow-on full game that will be released at a normal packaged price point." He also made reference to a comment from EA's CEO John Riccitiello that "the line between packaged product sales and digital revenues would soon begin to blur."

  

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  Study Shows People In Power Make Better Liars

  Posted: March 22nd, 2010, 3:13pm MDT by Soulskill

  oDDmON oUT writes "MSNBC is reporting that a Columbia Business School study shows those who hold power over others make better liars. According to one of the study's coauthors, 'It just doesn't hurt them as much to do it.' For the average liar, she said, the act of lying elicits negative emotions, physiological stress and the fear of getting caught in a lie. As a result, she added, liars will often send out cues that they are lying by doing things like fidgeting in a chair or changing the rate of their speech. But for the powerful, the impact is very different: 'Power, it seems, enhances the same emotional, cognitive, and physiological systems that lie-telling depletes. People with power enjoy positive emotions, increases in cognitive function, and physiological resilience such as lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Thus, holding power over others might make it easier for people to tell lies.'"

  

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  Google's New Approach For China Is To Serve From Hong Kong

  Posted: March 22nd, 2010, 2:29pm MDT by Soulskill

  abs0lutz3ro writes with a major update to the Google/China situation we've been discussing so much lately: "Google has stopped censoring simplified Chinese search results on google.cn by redirecting users to google.com.hk, which Google maintains is entirely legal. From the official blog: 'We want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our services, including users in mainland China, yet the Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement. We believe this new approach of providing uncensored search in simplified Chinese from Google.com.hk is a sensible solution to the challenges we've faced—it's entirely legal and will meaningfully increase access to information for people in China. We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision, though we are well aware that it could at any time block access to our services. We will therefore be carefully monitoring access issues, and have created this new web page, which we will update regularly each day, so that everyone can see which Google services are available in China.' Seems like google.cn got served (from google.com.hk)."

  

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  Nexuiz Founder Licenses It For Non-GPL Use

  Posted: March 22nd, 2010, 1:48pm MDT by Soulskill

  King InuYasha writes "Nexuiz founder Lee Vermuelen, along with several other core developers, have licensed the Nexuiz name, Nexuiz.com domain, and DarkPlaces engine to Illfonic in a deal to get Nexuiz on consoles. However, the kink is that the engine has been licensed for non-GPL usage. That is, Illfonic has no intention of contributing their code back to the main GPL Nexuiz project. As a result, Nexuiz has been forked into a new project called Xonotic. While the main Nexuiz site doesn't mention that Illfonic has no intention of contributing back, the Xonotic project FAQ explains what's going on. Additionally, the Xonotic project states that Illfonic 'may be in violation of the GPL as most contributors to the Nexuiz codebase have not relicensed their work for inclusion in a closed-source project.'"

  

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  Food Activist's Life Becomes The Life of Brian

  Posted: March 22nd, 2010, 1:34pm MDT by samzenpus

  krou writes "After food activist and author Raj Patel appeared on The Colbert Report to promote his latest book, things seemed to be going well, until he began to get inundated with emails asking if he was 'the world teacher.' In events ripped straight from The Life of Brian, it would seem that Raj Patel's life story ticks all the boxes necessary to fulfill prophecies made by Benjamin Creme, founder of religious sect Share International. After the volume of emails and inquiries got worse, Patel eventually wrote a message on his website stating categorically that he was not the Messiah. Sure enough, 'his denial merely fanned the flames for some believers. In a twist ripped straight from the script of the comedy classic, they said that this disavowal, too, had been prophesied.'"

  

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  Google vs. China — Who's Got the Most To Lose?

  Posted: March 22nd, 2010, 1:05pm MDT by Soulskill

  Barence writes "Google looks set to pull out of China, but who will suffer most? The search engine or China? At last week's South by Southwest conference, Kaiser Kuo, a former director of digital strategy for the Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency in China, gave an illuminating talk that examined the history of Google and other Western internet firms in China, their relationship with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and the likely outcomes of the current stalemate. Kuo explained that Google had earned the respect of the tech-savvy urban elite by protecting users, making censorship clear and by protecting its employees in China. That means Google is walking away from a 35% market share, which contains a far wealthier demographic than local provider Baidu. The Government, meanwhile, which has been very pro-competition, is about to hand a complete monopoly to Baidu, harm its international standing and the development of net technologies in the country. Is it a lose-lose situation?"

  

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  Metaprogramming Ruby

  Posted: March 22nd, 2010, 12:23pm MDT by samzenpus

  scottl writes "Metaprogramming Ruby is the first book to give an in-depth and readable explanation of how dynamic programming works in Ruby. It is both readable and accurate and will be a valuable resource to intermediate and probably advanced Ruby programmers for some time to come." Keep reading for the rest of scottl's review.

  

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  RNA-Loaded Nanoparticles Fight Cancer

  Posted: March 22nd, 2010, 11:42am MDT by Soulskill

  DirkDaring writes "It's been promised for years: that nanoparticles offer a treatment to many forms of cancer. Today, an important first step has been announced. In a new human trial, nanoparticles carrying RNA have successfully reached cancer cells and silenced the target gene. 'The researchers developed a nanoparticle carrying a molecular marker that binds to the surface of cancer cells, triggering the cells to absorb it. The siRNA carried within the particle was designed to silence a gene called ribonucleotide reductase M2 (RRM2), which regulates DNA synthesis and repair and is known to be an anticancer target. Because it was the first trial using targeted RNAi delivery for cancer, says Mark Davis, a professor of chemical engineering at Caltech and the study's lead author, "we wanted to choose a gene that was suspected to be hugely upregulated in a broad spectrum of cancers" in order to increase the likelihood of being able to observe the novel therapy's effect. The researchers analyzed biopsy samples from three melanoma patients in the trial who had received different doses of the therapy. They tracked the particles in the different samples, finding that the amounts they could see in the tumor cells correlated with the doses the patients received.'"

  

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  Open Source Is Not a Democracy

  Posted: March 22nd, 2010, 11:00am MDT by CmdrTaco

  itwbennett writes "A recent kerfuffle within the Ubuntu community serves as a reminder of an inconvenient truth: open source is not a democracy, writes blogger Brian Proffitt. 'The discussion started innocuously enough, within Bug #532633 in light-themes (Ubuntu) on Launchpad, where the order of the window controls within the Light theme were requested to be re-arranged to be on the upper right side of any given window. Light, it seemed, now placed the buttons on the left side, similar to the Mac OS X interface.' The discussion turned into an argument and culminated in this exchange in which Mark Shuttleworth lays down the law: 'It's fair comment that this was a big change, and landed without warning. There aren't any good reasons for that, but it's also true that no amount of warning would produce consensus about a decision like this... No. This is not a democracy. Good feedback, good data, are welcome. But we are not voting on design decisions.'"

  

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  Scientists "Print" Human Vein With 3D Printer

  Posted: March 22nd, 2010, 10:19am MDT by CmdrTaco

  An anonymous reader writes "3D Printing technology has recently leapt into a new realm — we've seen printers that can create entire buildings out of stone, delicious meals out of simple ingredients, and now — perhaps weirdest and coolest of them all — a printer that can build body parts from cells!"

  

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  Bill Would Require Public Information To Be Online

  Posted: March 22nd, 2010, 9:34am MDT by CmdrTaco

  Andurin writes "A bill that was introduced in the US House of Representatives last week would require all Executive Branch agencies to publish public information on the Internet in a timely fashion and in user-friendly formats. The Public Online Information Act would also establish an advisory committee to help craft Internet publication policies for the entire US government, including Congress and the Supreme Court. Citizens would have a limited, private right of action to compel the government to release public information online, though common sense exceptions (similar to those for FOIA) would remain in place."

  

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  Mafia Boss Betrayed By Facebook

  Posted: March 22nd, 2010, 8:50am MDT by CmdrTaco

  An anonymous reader writes "One of Italy's 100 most-wanted criminals, a vicious mafia boss who had been on the run for months, was betrayed by his passion for social networking and flushed out thanks to Facebook. Using the name 'Scarface' from the gangster movie starring Al Pacino, Pasquale Manfredi, 33, a boss of the the ferocious 'Ndrangheta mafia organization from the Calabria region in southern Italy, had logged on to his Facebook account so often that police were able to trace the signal from his Internet key and find his hideout.' Seems the Mafia Wars Facebook phenomenon goes deeper than it seemed!"

  

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  IE Not Faring Well In the EU Ballot

  Posted: March 22nd, 2010, 8:12am MDT by CmdrTaco

  unixcrab writes "Most PC users hit the web using Internet Explorer by default, simply because that's what came along with Windows. Now, after antitrust investigations, European users get a choice of browser to install via ballot screen, and initial reports are not good for 'ol IE. According to Statcounter, IE use in France has dropped 2.5 percent since last month's implementation of the ballot, 1.3 percent in Italy, and 1 percent in Britain. It's still early days, and it'll take more than this to chip away from IE's 62 percent lead in the browser war, but it's certainly not a good trend for Microsoft. With that in mind, we're going to have to ask you to place your bets now."

  

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  China Criticizes Google's 'US Ties'

  Posted: March 22nd, 2010, 7:34am MDT by CmdrTaco

  krou writes "State-run news agency Xinhua has attacked what it calls Google's 'intricate ties with the US government' amongst its high level officials, claiming that it's 'an open secret that some security experts in the Pentagon are from Google.' They have also accused the company of trying to change Chinese society by imposing American values on it. Xinhua said that 'One company's ambition to change China's internet rules will only prove to be ridiculous.' Google has denied the claims. Google spokeswoman Jessica Powell said that 'The decision to review our business in China was entirely Google's and Google's alone.'"

  

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  How To Avoid the Infection of Botnet?

  Posted: March 22nd, 2010, 6:51am MDT by CmdrTaco

  Taco Cowboy writes "2 of the networks in the company I work for have been zombified by different botnets. They are taken off the grid as we speak. We thought we have taken precautions against infection, such as firewall and anti-viral programs, but for some reasons we have failed. Is there any list of precautionary steps available?" I'd suggest port blocking 80 for any computer that is detected running a web browser, but that might prevent some percentage of legitimate work.

  

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  How To Avoid a Botnet Infection?

  Posted: March 22nd, 2010, 6:51am MDT by CmdrTaco

  Taco Cowboy writes "Two of the networks in the company I work for have been zombified by different botnets. They are taken off the grid as we speak. We thought we had taken precautions against infection, such as firewall and anti-viral programs, but for some reasons we have failed. Is there any list of precautionary steps available?" I'd suggest port blocking 80 for any computer that is detected running a web browser, but that might prevent some percentage of legitimate work.

  

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  House Passes Massive Medical Insurance Bill, 219-212

  Posted: March 22nd, 2010, 6:12am MDT by timothy

  The votes are in: yesterday evening, after a last-minute compromise over abortion payments, the US House of Representatives narrowly passed a bill effecting major changes in American medical finance. From the BBC's coverage: "The president is expected to sign the House-passed Senate bill as early as Tuesday, after which it will be officially enacted into law. However, it will contain some very unpopular measures that Democratic senators have agreed to amend. The Senate will be able to make the required changes in a separate bill using a procedure known as reconciliation, which allows budget provisions to be approved with 51 votes - rather than the 60 needed to overcome blocking tactics." No Republican voted in favor of the bill; 34 Democrats voted against. As law, the system set forth would extend insurance coverage to an estimated 32 million Americans, impose new taxes on high-income earners as well as provide some tax breaks and subsides for others, and considerably toughen the regulatory regime under which insurance companies operate. The anticipated insurance regime phases in (starting with children, and expanding to adults in 2014) a requirement that insurance providers accept those with preexisting conditions, and creates a system of fines, expected to be administered by the IRS, for those who fail or refuse to obtain health insurance.

  

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  Dueling Summary Judgment Motions In Viacom v. YouTube

  Posted: March 22nd, 2010, 3:27am MDT by timothy

  I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Eric Goldman, an Associate Professor of Law at Santa Clara University School of Law, has an excellent analysis of the dueling summary judgment motions in Viacom v. YouTube. Basically, both sides have been trotting out the most damning things they can find and asking the judge to rule against the other party. Viacom is mad that Chad Hurley, one of YouTube's co-founders, lost his email archive and couldn't remember some old emails. Worse, YouTube founder Karim once uploaded infringing content. But then Google points out that only a very small percentage of the users are engaged in infringing activity (some 0.016% of all YouTube accounts have been deleted for infringement), one of the clips Viacom is suing over is only one second long (what about fair use?), and most of YouTube's content is non-infringing, including the campaign videos which all major US presidential candidates posted to YouTube." (More below.)

  

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  New Chip Offers Virtual Windows Desktops, On TVs

  Posted: March 22nd, 2010, 12:48am MDT by timothy

  angry tapir writes "Ncomputing on Friday announced a chip that could turn devices like TVs or set-top boxes into virtual desktops through which users can run Windows applications or access the Internet. The Numo chip contains a dual-core processor based on an ARM design that will allow devices to run Windows multimedia applications when connected to a host machine like a desktop or server. The setup uses the company's Vspace software on host machines to set up remote devices as virtual desktops."

  

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  Carbon-14 Dating Reveals 5% of Vintage Wines May Be Frauds

  Posted: March 21st, 2010, 10:00pm MDT by timothy

  Carbon dating isn't all used for such academic pursuits as trying to determine the age of the Shroud of Turin, or figure out how old some rocks are. An anonymous reader writes "Up to 5% of fine wines are not from the year the label indicates, according to Australian researchers who have carbon dated some top dollar wines."

  

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  Flaw In Emergency Response System May Have Killed Hundreds

  Posted: March 21st, 2010, 6:52pm MDT by timothy

  Hugh Pickens writes "The Telegraph reports that a flaw in the way emergency response software was set up to handle Category A responses in Great Britain may have cost hundreds of lives over the past ten years. Most ambulance services use an international computerized system designed in America and in the US version, a fall of more than 6 feet receives the maximum priority response. However, the government committee which governs its use in Great Britain decided that such cases should be deemed less urgent, and excluded from an eight minute category A target response time. If a call involved a fall of more than 6 feet it was designated a lower priority 'category B response' despite the presence of life-threatening conditions which were supposed to receive the most urgent category A response. The flaw came to light after Bonnie Mason, 58, fell 12 feet down the stairs and died from a head injury after emergency controllers in Suffolk failed to identify her situation as 'life-threatening.'"

  

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  Multicore Requires OS Rework, Windows Expert Says

  Posted: March 21st, 2010, 5:48pm MDT by timothy

  alphadogg writes "With chip makers continuing to increase the number of cores they include on each new generation of their processors, perhaps it's time to rethink the basic architecture of today's operating systems, suggested Dave Probert, a kernel architect within the Windows core operating systems division at Microsoft. The current approach to harnessing the power of multicore processors is complicated and not entirely successful, he argued. The key may not be in throwing more energy into refining techniques such as parallel programming, but rather rethinking the basic abstractions that make up the operating systems model. Today's computers don't get enough performance out of their multicore chips, Probert said. 'Why should you ever, with all this parallel hardware, ever be waiting for your computer?' he asked. Probert made his presentation at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Universal Parallel Computing Research Center."

  

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  Medical Professionals Aren't Leaping For E-Medicine

  Posted: March 21st, 2010, 4:40pm MDT by timothy

  theodp writes "Despite all the stimulus money being directed toward developing electronic medical records, surprisingly few doctors, hospitals and insurers are using Google Health and other sites like it. One reason, Newsweek suggests, may be that Web-based personal-health records like the ones being compiled on Google Health don't appear to be covered under HIPAA, which requires that health care providers and health plans protect patient confidentiality. 'We don't connect that information to other aspects of Google,' explains Dr. Roni Zeiger, product manager for Google Health. Still, the federal government is in the process of drafting privacy recommendations that would apply to Google Health, as well as the makers of consumer apps that perform tasks like monitoring blood pressure."

  

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  If ET Calls, Who Speaks For Humanity?

  Posted: March 21st, 2010, 3:36pm MDT by timothy

  EagleHasLanded writes "Who speaks for humankind if ET calls on us? Paul Davies, chairman of the SETI Post-Detection Taskgroup, is a likely ambassador. But Allen Tough founded the Invitation to ETI Web site, which encourages ET to make contact via email (and also strongly discourages humans from impersonating ET). But an individual in the UK got over some of the hurdles designed to weed out hoaxers, before finally throwing in the towel."

  

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  India First To Build a Supersonic Cruise Missile

  Posted: March 21st, 2010, 2:34pm MDT by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt: "India successfully tested Sunday a 'maneuverable' version of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile which it has jointly developed with Russia, news reports said. The vertical-launch version of the 290-kilometer range BrahMos was tested from a warship in the Bay of Bengal off India's eastern coast, the PTI news agency reported. 'The vertical-launch version of missile was launched at 11:30 (0600 GMT) hours today from Indian Navy ship INS Ranvir and it manoeuvred successfully hitting the target ship. It was a perfect hit and a perfect mission,' BrahMos aerospace chief A Sivathanu Pillai was quoted as saying. 'After today's test, India has become the first and only country in the world to have a manoeuvrable supersonic cruise missile in its inventory,' Pillai said."

  

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  What Is Holding Back the Paperless Office?

  Posted: March 21st, 2010, 1:23pm MDT by timothy

  Drethon writes "CNN has an article (are we up to the millionth article on this topic?) asking if the paperless office has arrived. This got me wondering, what are the main things holding back the paperless office? Just off the top of my head, the main thing keeping me printing out documents is the ability to spread a dozen pages of a document under review out on my table and marking it up by hand. PDF and Word markups are not too bad but they still lack the ability to spread many pages out to look over at the same time and could be improved to make markup a bit less restrictive. I do find myself printing out less with the use of dual monitors to have source documents and work under progress up at the same time, perhaps something like Microsoft's tabletop computer used as a desk will let me have at least a paperless desk. I know there are other reasons why offices are not becoming paperless. What are your reasons?"

  

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  Russian ASCII Art Animated Cat From 1968

  Posted: March 21st, 2010, 12:18pm MDT by timothy

  harrymcc writes "Forty-two years ago, Russian scientists created an impressive sequence of a cat walking about — and it was all the more impressive given that the 'CGI' involved rendering hundreds of images of the cat as ASCII art, then printing out the sequence image by image and photographing it."

  

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  Switzerland Passes Violent Games Ban

  Posted: March 21st, 2010, 11:12am MDT by Soulskill

  BanjoTed writes with a followup to news from February that the Swiss government was pursuing a ban on violent video games. He writes "Sadly, Switzerland has now passed the law that paves the way for an outright ban on violent video games in the country. The full implications of the ruling will not be known until the government reveals the exact requirements that will be laid down by the new legislation – a decision that has not yet been made. What is certain though is that the Swiss authorities have now obtained the power to introduce any measures they see fit. The likeliest outcome seems to be an outright ban on the production, distribution and sale of any games deemed to be unsuitable – most likely anything with either a PEGI 16+ or PEGI 18+ certificate."

  

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  Bad BitDefender Update Clobbers Windows PCs

  Posted: March 21st, 2010, 9:56am MDT by Soulskill

  alphadogg writes "Users of the BitDefender antivirus software started flooding the company's support forums Saturday, apparently after a faulty antivirus update caused 64-bit Windows machines to stop working. The company acknowledged the issue in a note explaining the problem. 'Due to a recent update it is possible that BitDefender detects several Windows and BitDefender files as infected with Trojan.FakeAlert.5,' the company said. The acknowledgment came after BitDefender users had logged hundreds of posts on the topic. Some complained of being unable to reboot their systems."

  

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  Google Hands Out Web Security Scanner

  Posted: March 21st, 2010, 8:36am MDT by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "Apparently feeling generous this week, Google has released for free another of their internally developed tools: this time, a nifty web security scanner dubbed skipfish. A vendor-sponsored study cited by InformationWeek discovered that 90% of all web applications are vulnerable to security attacks. Are Google's security people trying to change this?"

  

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  Chinese Researcher Says US Power Grid Is Vulnerable, Strategist Overreacts

  Posted: March 21st, 2010, 7:17am MDT by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes with a story about Wang Jianwei, a grad student in China who recently released a paper detailing a vulnerability in the US power grid. Despite the paper being rather typical for security research, its origin set off alarm bells for military strategist Larry M. Wortzel, who testified before Congress that the student was a threat, despite the fact that the published attack wasn't really feasible. Quoting: "'We usually say "attack" so you can see what would happen,' [Wang] said. 'My emphasis is on how you can protect this. My goal is to find a solution to make the network safer and better protected.' And independent American scientists who read his paper said it was true: Mr. Wang's work was a conventional technical exercise that in no way could be used to take down a power grid. The difference between Mr. Wang's explanation and Mr. Wortzel’s conclusion is of more than academic interest. It shows that in an atmosphere already charged with hostility between the United States and China over cybersecurity issues, including large-scale attacks on computer networks, even a misunderstanding has the potential to escalate tension and set off an overreaction. 'Already people are interpreting this as demonstrating some kind of interest that China would have in disrupting the US power grid,' said Nart Villeneuve, a researcher with the SecDev Group, an Ottawa-based cybersecurity research and consulting group."

  

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  Need Help Salvaging Data From an Old Xenix System

  Posted: March 21st, 2010, 6:23am MDT by timothy

  Milo_Mindbender writes "I've recently gotten ahold of an old Altos 586 Xenix system (a late '80s Microsoft flavor of Unix) that has one of the first multi-user BBS systems in the US on it, and I want to salvage the historical BBS posts off it. I'm wondering if anyone remembers what format Xenix used on the 10MB (yes MB) IDE hard drive and if it can still be read on a modern Linux system. This system is quite old, has no removable media or ethernet and just barely works. The only other way to get data off is a slow serial port. I've got a controller that should work with the disk, but don't want to tear this old machine apart without some hope that it will work. Anyone know?"

  

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  US Law Firms Targeted By Cyberscams

  Posted: March 21st, 2010, 5:59am MDT by timothy

  Hugh Pickens writes "The San Francisco Chronicle reports that last year a Long Beach law firm received an e-mail from a Hong Kong businessman seeking help collecting debts from American customers. After a month of signing paperwork and exchanging telephone calls, the attorney received word that one debtor had sent a $200,000 cashier's check to pay off his balance. The attorney deposited it in his firm's account, subtracted his $10,000 fee and wired the remaining $190,000 to his Hong Kong client. Then the attorney's bank called and told him the $200,000 check had bounced. 'They send me a nice, big, worthless check,' says the attorney. In this case, the bank was able to prevent the wire transfer from reaching its destination, but attorneys say they are on the receiving end of sophisticated scams with increasing frequency that include attacks to steal client data that can be sold or used to learn the details of future litigation."

  

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  Server Room Smells Can Be an Early Warning

  Posted: March 21st, 2010, 3:03am MDT by timothy

  Barence writes "As embarrassing as it may seem, an eggy smell in a server room needn't mean broaching the delicate subject of hygiene with a colleague. It can actually be a signal that something is about to go wrong with your server setup, as this consultant discovered after days of assuming questionable personal habits were to blame. The culprit? An expiring UPS device, sending out its own unique warning signal."

  

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  Anti-Gamer South Australian Attorney General Quits

  Posted: March 21st, 2010, 2:12am MDT by timothy

  dogbolter writes "South Australian Attorney General, Michael Atkinson, infamous for the banning of R18+ rated games and the censoring of political comment in Australia, has quit. The recent South Australian election provided a massive swing against Atkinson's governing labor party. As a direct result of the South Australian election result, he is standing down. Hopefully someone with half a clue will assume the vacant post and overturn the decision to ban adult oriented computer games."

  

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  Nintendo Developing DS Apps For School Systems

  Posted: March 21st, 2010, 12:08am MDT by timothy

  MojoKid writes "Shigeru Miyamoto, who has had a hand in some of Nintendo's most popular titles, recently offered that he is working hard to turn Nintendo's DS line of handheld gaming machines into tools for schools. The DS already has a nice line of educational software titles that help users learn, and he thinks that this could really be a huge benefit to schools looking for alternative ways to educate students of a new generation. The company has already managed to get them into Japanese elementary schools."

  

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  Novell Rejects "Inadequate" $2B Takeover Bid

  Posted: March 20th, 2010, 9:12pm MDT by timothy

  alphadogg writes "Novell's CEO wrote to customers Saturday telling them that the software company has rejected a $2 billion bid by hedge fund Elliott Associates to take it private. He called the offer 'inadequate' and said Novell will review alternatives. Novell has struggled financially even as it has reinvented itself from its NetWare network operating roots into an open source (SUSE and Ximian) and management and security software company. Revenue fell 10% during its most recent fiscal year (wrapped up in October) and its net losses widened. CEO Hovsepian's total compensation fell 17% to $5.7 million."

  

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  Autoscanning The Names People Choose For Their Wireless APs

  Posted: March 20th, 2010, 6:07pm MDT by timothy

  MichaelSmith writes "I code on the tram, going to and from work and I noticed that there are a lot of wifi access points along the way. So one week I made it my job to write an automatic scanner which runs from a cron job every minute during commuting times. My backup script pushes the new AP names to my web server and you can read it on line. It is a mixture of the straightforward, naive and funny, with a few pop culture references along the way. The first column in the file is the number of access points with that name. The second column is the AP name, in brackets to pick up white space." Why can't "Dress Me Slowly" and "Domestic Bliss" just share an AP?

  

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  Auto-Scanning the Names People Choose For Their Wireless APs

  Posted: March 20th, 2010, 6:07pm MDT by timothy

  MichaelSmith writes "I code on the tram, going to and from work, and I noticed that there are a lot of WiFi access points along the way. So one week I made it my job to write an automatic scanner which runs from a cron job every minute during commuting times. My backup script pushes the new AP names to my web server and you can read it online. It is a mixture of the straightforward, naive and funny, with a few pop culture references along the way. The first column in the file is the number of access points with that name. The second column is the AP name, in brackets to pick up white space." Why can't "Dress Me Slowly" and "Domestic Bliss" just share an AP?

  

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  Every British Citizen To Have a Personal Webpage

  Posted: March 20th, 2010, 5:00pm MDT by timothy

  Hugh Pickens writes "The Telegraph reports that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is about to announce that within a year everyone in Great Britain will be given a personalized webpage for accessing Government services as part of a plan to save billions of pounds by putting all public services online. The move could see the closure of job centers and physical offices dealing with tax, vehicle licensing, passports and housing benefits within 10 years as services are offered through a single digital gateway. [This] 'saves time for people and it saves money for the Government — the processing of a piece of paper and mailing it back costs many times more than it costs to process something electronically,' says Tim Berners-Lee, an advisor to the Prime Minister. However, the proposals are coming under fire from union leaders who complain that thousands of public sector workers would be made jobless and pointed to the Government's poor record of handling personal data. 'Cutting public services is not only bad for the public who use services but also the economy as we are pushing people who provide valuable services on the dole,' says one union leader."

  

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  Mozilla Labs To Bring Address Book To Firefox

  Posted: March 20th, 2010, 3:57pm MDT by timothy

  suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica: "Mozilla has announced the availability of an experimental new add-on for Firefox that is designed to import information about the user's contacts from a variety of Web services and other sources. The add-on makes contact details easily accessible to the user and can also selectively supply it to remote Web applications. ... After the add-on has imported and indexed the user's contact data, it becomes available to the user through an integrated contact management tool that functions like an address book. One of Mozilla's first experiments is an autocompletion feature that allows users to select a contact when they are typing an e-mail address into a Web form. ... To make the browser's contact database accessible to Web applications, the add-on uses the W3C Contacts API specification."

  

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  5 Reasons Tablets Suck, and You Won't Buy One

  Posted: March 20th, 2010, 2:53pm MDT by timothy

  Crazzaper writes "When the iPad was announced, a lot of people who didn't care about tablets came out to bash Apple's new device. These same people said 'I would have bought it if it had a full OS,' but in reality full OS tablets existed before the iPad rumors even started. This article gives an interesting perspective on why this happened, and argues that there's five big reasons why more powerful tablets exists but no one cares."

  

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  Memorizing Language / Spelling Techniques?

  Posted: March 20th, 2010, 2:20pm MDT by timothy

  NotesSensei writes "My kids are learning Chinese in school. While the grammar is drop-dead simple, writing is a challenge since there is no relation between sound and shape of the characters. I would like to know if there good techniques (using technology or not) to help memorize large amounts of information, especially Chinese characters. Most of the stuff I Googled only helps on learning speaking."

  

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  Sci-Fi Writer Peter Watts Convicted of Assault

  Posted: March 20th, 2010, 1:52pm MDT by timothy

  SJrX writes "CBC news is reporting that Peter Watts has indeed been convicted of Assaulting border guards, (discussed here). He will be sentenced April 26th."

  

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  Baffled By the Obsession With Pretend-Business Games

  Posted: March 20th, 2010, 12:50pm MDT by timothy

  theodp writes "Newsweek's Daniel Lyons confesses to being mystified by all the people tending to their virtual farms and virtual pets on Facebook. Even stranger, he says, is their willingness to spend real money to buy virtual products, like pretend guns and fertilizer, to gain advantage in these Web-based games. Pretend products are a serious business, estimated to grow to $1.6B next year, and have captured the attention of economists and academics who view the virtual economy as a lab for modeling behavior in the real world. Still, Lyons can't help but question whether the kind of people who spend hours online taking care of imaginary pets are representative of the rest of the population. 'The data might be "perfect" and "complete,"' says Lyons, 'but the world from which it's gathered is anything but that.'"

  

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  Canada's Top Court Quashes Child Porn Warrant

  Posted: March 20th, 2010, 11:51am MDT by Soulskill

  m.ducharme writes "The CBC is reporting that the Supreme Court of Canada has handed down a decision quashing a search warrant used to obtain the computer of a man accused of possession of child porn. 'Urbain P. Morelli maintained his charter rights were violated when police searched his computer for child pornography after a technician who had visited his home to work on the machine expressed concerns to police.' What the Slashdot community may find notable about this decision is the distinction drawn between 'accessing' and 'possessing' digital images, most particularly the recognition that a user does not 'possess' cached data. From the decision: '[35] When accessing Web pages, most Internet browsers will store on the computer's own hard drive a temporary copy of all or most of the files that comprise the Web page. This is typically known as a "caching function" and the location of the temporary, automatic copies is known as the "cache." While the configuration of the caching function varies and can be modified by the user, cached files typically include images and are generally discarded automatically after a certain number of days, or after the cache grows to a certain size. [36] On my view of possession, the automatic caching of a file to the hard drive does not, without more, constitute possession. While the cached file might be in a "place" over which the computer user has control, in order to establish possession, it is necessary to satisfy mens rea or fault requirements as well. Thus, it must be shown that the file was knowingly stored and retained through the cache.'"

  

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  Amazon Battles Apple By Arm-Twisting Publishers

  Posted: March 20th, 2010, 10:48am MDT by Soulskill

  bizwriter writes "Apple has upset the e-book pricing cart by agreeing to a so-called agency model, where the publisher sets the price and the seller takes a cut. This goes contrary to the degree of control Amazon likes, so although it apparently gave in to Macmillan back in February, it turns out that Amazon continues twisting arms. The problem publishers face is that Apple has a most-favored-nation clause, so it gets the best deal that the publishers offer. If the publishers give in to Amazon, then they also have to provide the same terms to Apple."

  

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  Mozilla Plans Fix For Critical Firefox Vulnerability In Next Release

  Posted: March 20th, 2010, 10:05am MDT by Soulskill

  Trailrunner7 writes "A month after an advisory was published detailing a new vulnerability in Firefox, Mozilla said it has received exploit code for the flaw and is planning to patch the weakness on March 30 in the next release of Firefox. Mozilla officials said Thursday that the vulnerability, which was disclosed February 18 by Secunia, is a critical flaw that could result in remote code execution on a vulnerable machine. The vulnerability is in version 3.6 of Firefox."

  

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  IRS Security Faults Leave Taxpayer Data At Risk

  Posted: March 20th, 2010, 9:46am MDT by Soulskill

  coondoggie writes "In this tax season, when billions of dollars and tons of personal information is relayed to and from the government, it's more than disconcerting to hear that the Internal Revenue Service is still struggling to keep private information secure. A report out Friday from watchdogs at the Government Accountability Office says about 69% of the tax agency's previously noted security flaws remain unfixed and continue to jeopardize the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the IRS's systems (PDF). The problems put the IRS at increased risk of unauthorized disclosure, modification, or destruction of financial and taxpayer information, the GAO concluded."

  

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  Madoff's Programmers Indicted

  Posted: March 20th, 2010, 8:43am MDT by Soulskill

  jason8 writes with news that two programmers who worked at Bernie Madoff's investment firm have now been indicted on charges of 'conspiracy, falsifying records of a broker-dealer and falsifying records of an investment adviser,' for their role in hiding the firm's activities (PDF) from the SEC and external accountants. Quoting Reuters: "O'Hara and Perez, employed at the firm from 1990 and 1991, respectively, were primarily responsible for developing and maintaining computer programs in the investment advisory unit at the center of the fraud. Many of the programs were run on an IBM server known as 'House 17,' according to court documents. Prosecutors said the men took hush money to help keep the fraud going and designed codes to make up fake trade blotters and phantom records. US prosecutors said the two men worked under the supervision of Madoff and his top aide, Frank DiPascali, to deceive the US Securities and Exchange Commission and a European accounting firm. DiPascali is cooperating with prosecutors, who said his information led to the arrests of the programmers and the now defunct firm's outside accountant."

  

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  Naming and Shaming 'Bad' ISPs

  Posted: March 20th, 2010, 7:44am MDT by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "Brian Krebs takes a provocative look at ISP reputations, collecting data from 10 different sources that track 'badness' from a multitude of angles, from phishing to malware to botnet command and control centers. Some of the lists show very interesting and useful results; the ISPs that are most common among the various reputation services are some of the largest ISPs and hosting providers, including ThePlanet and Softlayer. The story has generated quite a bit of discussion in the security community as to whether these various efforts are measuring the wrong things, or if it is indeed valid and useful to keep public attention focused on the bigger providers, since these are generally US-based and have the largest abuse problems in terms of overall numbers."

  

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  Naming and Shaming "Bad" ISPs

  Posted: March 20th, 2010, 7:44am MDT by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "Brian Krebs takes a provocative look at ISP reputations, collecting data from 10 different sources that track 'badness' from a multitude of angles, from phishing to malware to botnet command and control centers. Some of the lists show very interesting and useful results; the ISPs that are most common among the various reputation services are some of the largest ISPs and hosting providers, including ThePlanet and Softlayer. The story has generated quite a bit of discussion in the security community as to whether these various efforts are measuring the wrong things, or if it is indeed valid and useful to keep public attention focused on the bigger providers, since these are generally US-based and have the largest abuse problems in terms of overall numbers."

  

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  Business-Suitable Document Authentication System?

  Posted: March 20th, 2010, 6:42am MDT by timothy

  ram.loss writes "The company I work for has decided to go paperless for all memos and internal correspondence. In addition to the central administration, the company has three more or less autonomous, physically separated divisions; that means we do not have a common IT infrastructure across all of them. Since I am the only resemblance we have to an IT department at my division, I have been commissioned with evaluating the available technology to manage and authenticate all correspondence, although it is not my area of expertise (I have a CompSci degree, but for many years have specialized in transportation modeling software). My initial thought was to use a document management system like Plone (this is the system I'm familiar with); from what I have read, that would take care of the management part, but what about authentication? We need each document to be signed, and a fully auditable system that keeps track of who signed what document, who received it and when. It also must take into account the handling of external correspondence in the future, where a recipient outside the company must have the means to return an authenticated document as a response. I'm aware that I'm leaving out a lot of details, like how the documents will be signed, the legal implications, etc., but for the time being I'm only interested in the experiences of the Slashdot crowd with such systems, and hopefully finding out enough information to hand over the matter to (or hiring) somebody more qualified, once I know what to look for. Has anybody out there used a similar system? Am I in way over my head?"

  

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  Internet Explorer 9 Will Not Support Windows XP

  Posted: March 20th, 2010, 5:40am MDT by timothy

  MojoKid writes "As it turns out, news this week is that the same features that made IE9's hardware-acceleration possible probably aren't compatible with Windows XP. Microsoft initially dodged giving a straight answer to the question of XP support but has since admitted that the new browser won't be XP-compatible when it launches. This has created a small tempest of protest from those users still using XP, but this is less of an arbitrary decision than some appear to think. It's literally impossible to port Windows Vista/Win 7-style hardware acceleration backwards to XP. Microsoft would have to either develop a workaround from scratch or create a CPU-driven 'software mode.'"

  

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  Google Launches 3D Driver Project For Chrome

  Posted: March 20th, 2010, 2:33am MDT by timothy

  CWmike writes "Google has launched a new project for Chrome that will let the browser run a wider range of 3D graphics content without downloading additional drivers. The open-source project, called ANGLE (Almost Native Graphics Layer Engine), seeks to let Chromium run WebGL content on Windows computers, wrote product manager Henry Bridge on the Chromium blog. WebGL is still-developing a cross-platform Web standard for accessing low-level 3D graphics hardware based on the OpenGL ES 2.0 API (application programming interface) that can be implemented directly in a browser without a plugin. 'ANGLE will allow Windows users to run WebGL content without having to find and install new drivers for their system,' Bridge wrote. Because ANGLE aims to use most of the OpenGL ES 2.0 API, it may help developers working on mobile and embedded devices, Bridge wrote. 'ANGLE should make it simpler to prototype these applications on Windows and also gives developers new options for deploying production versions of their code to the desktop.'"

  

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  "Moot" Working On Reboot of 4chan Platform

  Posted: March 19th, 2010, 11:22pm MDT by timothy

  Hugh Pickens writes "Nick Bilton has an interesting interview with Christopher Poole, known online as 'Moot,' founder 4chan, a jumble of content, hosting anything from pictures of cute kittens to wildly disturbing images and language. Poole, now 22, started 4chan when he was 15 after he discovered a Japanese image-board Web forum called 2chan dedicated to anime. 'The code for 2chan was publicly available and I took it and translated it from Japanese to English using tools online and I threw it up on the Web and sent it out to 20 people,' says Poole. 'I wanted to keep with the 2chan naming and the URL for 3chan was taken at the time so I just jumped to the next number.' Although 4chan gets 8.2 million unique visitors every month, 600 million page loads per month, and 800,000 new posts a day, Poole is working on a new project to reimagine what an image board should be today using the current technologies available."

  

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  ISC Releases the First Look At BIND 10

  Posted: March 19th, 2010, 8:10pm MDT by timothy

  Ethanol writes "Internet Systems Consortium, producers of BIND 9 (the most popular DNS implementation on the internet), have spent the past year working on a successor, BIND 10. It's entirely new code, redesigned and rewritten from the ground up, and now the first glimpse of what it will eventually look like has been released. 'This code is not intended for general use, and is known to be inefficient, difficult to work with, and riddled with bugs. These problems will all be fixed over the next couple of years, as functionality is added and refined, and the software matures. However, the codebase has a good framework for moving forward, and the software is capable of serving as a DNS server with significant functionality.' (Full disclosure: I work for ISC and I'm one of the engineers on the project.)"

  

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  Scientists Use Sex-Crazed Bugs As Pesticide

  Posted: March 19th, 2010, 5:41pm MDT by samzenpus

  ByronScott writes "In today's 'gross news' category, some female insects just might be getting lucky. As an alternative to toxic pesticides, scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have created 'super-sexed' sterilized male leafhoppers to knock bug boots with females in the wild, resulting in decreased populations. Yes, that means that the female bugs will miss out on the joys of motherhood, but the idea that the insects will be having some fun instead of being gassed to death by poisons is pretty cool."

  

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  Federal Judge Bars Instant Publishing of Analysts' Stock Tips

  Posted: March 19th, 2010, 5:24pm MDT by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes "Big Banking firms Barclay's Capital, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch successfully obtained an injunction against theflyonthewall.com, Inc., preventing them from immediately publishing the firms' stock upgrades and downgrades. This case could have far-reaching consequences concerning internet communication and publication of news." Here's some interesting analysis from Paul Levy, via Dave Farber's Interesting People list.

  

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  YouTube Was Evil, and Google Knew It

  Posted: March 19th, 2010, 4:34pm MDT by kdawson

  pcause writes "Silicon Alley Insider has the most damning evidence released in the Viacom/YouTube suit. It seems clear from these snippets that YouTube knew it was pirating content, and did it to grow fast and sell for a lot of money. It also seems clear that Google knew the site contained pirated content and bought it and continued the pirating."

  

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  Oracle Shuttering OpenSSO

  Posted: March 19th, 2010, 3:48pm MDT by kdawson

  mdm42 writes "OpenSSO is one of the best open source web Single Sign On projects out there. Sun Microsystems made OpenSSO open source in 2008, so it's sad to see how, after absorbing Sun, Oracle is shutting down this amazing project, labelling it 'not strategic' and dismembering the few parts they think are worthwhile for their own SSO effort. They started by freezing the next express release, and during the last few weeks they have been removing all the open source downloads from the OpenSSO website and removing content from the wiki. Fortunately, a Norwegian company called ForgeRock has stepped up to the plate in an attempt to salvage the project under the new name OpenAM."

  

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  Company Sued, Loses For Not Using Patented Tech

  Posted: March 19th, 2010, 3:06pm MDT by kdawson

  bdcrazy writes "A man was recently awarded $1.5M in a jury trial after his hand was injured by a Ryobi table saw. The saw did not include the patented 'Saw Stop' technology that the plaintiff argued would have prevented all the problems." 60 similar cases have now been filed nationwide. TechDirt makes the argument that this jury decision is completely crazy: "If the government is going to require companies to use a patented technology, it seems that the only reasonable solution is to remove the patent on it and allow competition in the market place." If the decision stands, not only will the price of table saws go way up, but other hungry patent-holders will probably get a gleam in their eye.

  

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  Free Software To Save Us From Social Networks

  Posted: March 19th, 2010, 2:20pm MDT by kdawson

  Glyn Moody writes "Here's a problem for free software: most social networks are built using it, yet through their constant monitoring of users they do little to promote freedom. Eben Moglen, General Counsel of the Free Software Foundation for 13 years, and the legal brains behind several versions of the GNU GPL, thinks that the free software world needs to fix this with a major new hardware+software project. 'The most attractive hardware is the ultra-small, ARM-based, plug it into the wall, wall-wart server. [Such] an object can be sold to people at a very low one-time price, and brought home and plugged into an electrical outlet and plugged into a wall jack for the Ethernet, and you're done. It comes up, it gets configured through your Web browser on whatever machine you want to have in the apartment with it, and it goes and fetches all your social networking data from all the social networking applications, closing all your accounts. It backs itself up in an encrypted way to your friends' plugs, so that everybody is secure in the way that would be best for them, by having their friends holding the secure version of their data.' Could such a plan work, or is it simply too late to get people to give up their Facebook accounts for something that gives them more freedom?"

  

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  The Woes of Munich's Linux Migration

  Posted: March 19th, 2010, 1:37pm MDT by kdawson

  mikrorechner writes "The H Online has a writeup of the problems encountered by LiMux (Wikipedia entry), one of the most prominent Linux migration projects in the world, trying to introduce free software into the highly heterogenous IT infrastructure of the City of Munich. Quoting: 'Florian Schiessl, deputy head of Munich's LiMux project for migrating the city's public administration to Linux, has, for the first time, explained why migrating the city's computing landscape to open source software has taken longer than originally planned.'" Here is Shiessl's blog, in which he details some of the transition problems.

  

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  Memory Cards of 3,000 Phones Infected By Malware

  Posted: March 19th, 2010, 12:55pm MDT by kdawson

  itwbennett sends us a few links from IT World tracing a story about infected microSD cards in Vodaphone-supplied mobile phones. "The original report came on March 8 after an employee of Panda Security plugged a newly ordered HTC Magic phone from Vodafone into a Windows computer, where it triggered an alert from the antivirus software. Further inspection of the phone found the device's 8GB microSD memory card was infected with a client for the now-defunct Mariposa botnet, the Conficker worm, and a password stealer for the Lineage game. At that point it was at thought to be an issue with a specific refurbished phone. On Wednesday another phone surfaced with traces of the Mariposa botnet. And now Vodafone is saying that as many as 3,000 HTC Magic phones may be affected."

  

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  LHC Hits an Energy of 3.5TeV

  Posted: March 19th, 2010, 12:06pm MDT by kdawson

  Inovaovao writes "As announced on Twitter by the CMS experiment, the LHC has finally accelerated both beams to 3.5 TeV for the first time. It thus broke the previous energy record of 1.18 TeV it had set last fall, about a month since operations started again this year. It'll be a while yet before we see stable beams and collisions at 3.5 TeV. You won't get much of a clue to the timetable by reading the General Manager's pompous announcements. If you want to follow what's going on, look at the Status Ops."

  

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  $99 Moby Tablet As Textbook Alternative

  Posted: March 19th, 2010, 11:19am MDT by kdawson

  Taco Cowboy writes "Marvell's Moby tablet will be an always-on, high performance multimedia tablet capable of full Flash support and 1080p HD playback and supporting WiFi, Bluetooth, FM radio, GPS and both Android and Windows Mobile platforms for maximum flexibility. It could eliminate the need for students to buy and carry bound textbooks and an array of other tools. The tablet is expected to hold a full year's worth of books but weigh less than half of one typical textbook." The tablet is a bit vaporous at this point, but if the final device comes anywhere near these specs and price point, it could be attractive.

  

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  Google Reported Ready To Leave China April 10

  Posted: March 19th, 2010, 10:33am MDT by kdawson

  A number of readers including tsj5j and bruleriestdenis wrote to alert us to this CNET story: "Google is expected to announce on Monday that it will withdraw from China on April 10, according to a report in a Beijing-based newspaper that cited an unidentified sales associate who works with the company. 'I have received information saying that Google will leave China on April 10, but this information has not at present been confirmed by Google,' the China Business News quoted the agent as saying. The report also said Google would reveal its plans for its China-based staff that day."

  

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  Microsoft Lifts XP Mode Hardware Requirement

  Posted: March 19th, 2010, 9:46am MDT by kdawson

  An anonymous reader writes "This week, Microsoft published a patch that allows Windows XP Mode to run on PCs without hardware-assisted virtualization. Which begs the question: Why the bizarro requirement in the first place? Was it an honest attempt to deliver an 'optimal' user experience? Or simply a concession to the company's jilted lover, Intel Corporation — 'a kind of apology for royally screwing up with the whole Windows Vista “too fat to fit” debacle,' as the blog post puts it."

  

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  Invisibility Cloak Created In 3D

  Posted: March 19th, 2010, 9:22am MDT by kdawson

  An anonymous reader writes "Scientists have created the first device to render an object invisible in three dimensions. The 'cloak,' described in the journal Science (abstract; full text requires login), hid an object from detection using light of wavelengths close to those that are visible to humans. Previous devices have been able to hide objects from light travelling in only one direction; viewed from any other angle, the object would remain visible. This is a very early but significant step towards a true invisibility cloak." The "object" hidden in this work was a bump one micrometer high. The light used was just longer than the wavelengths our eyes detect. To get a visible-light cloak, the features of the cloaking metamaterial would need to be reduced in size from 300 nm to 10 nm.

  

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  US Military Shuts Down CIA's Terrorist Honey Pot

  Posted: March 19th, 2010, 9:03am MDT by kdawson

  Hugh Pickens sends in a Washington Post story about how US military cyber-warriors attacked and shut down a CIA-backed intelligence gathering site. "US military computer specialists, over the objections of the CIA, mounted a cyberattack that dismantled an online 'honey pot' monitored by US and Saudi intelligence agencies to identify extremists before they could strike, after military commanders said that the site was putting Americans at risk. The CIA argued that dismantling the site would lead to a significant loss of intelligence, while the military (in the form of the NSA) countered that taking it down was a legitimate operation in defense of US troops. 'The CIA didn't endorse the idea of crippling Web sites,' said one US counterterrorism official. The agency 'understood that intelligence would be lost, and it was; that relationships with cooperating intelligence services would be damaged, and they were; and that the terrorists would migrate to other sites, and they did.' Four former senior US officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the creation and shutting down of the site illustrates the need for clearer policies governing cyberwar."

  

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  UMG To Price New CDs Under $10

  Posted: March 19th, 2010, 8:17am MDT by kdawson

  marmoset writes "Perhaps a decade late, Universal Music Group has decided to try out sub-$10 CD pricing in the US. 'Beginning in the second quarter and continuing through most of the year, the company's Velocity program will test lower CD prices. Single CDs will have the suggested list prices of $10, $9, $8, $7 and $6.'" CD retailers are not convinced the price cuts will work out. For one thing it depends on whether other major labels follow suit, but the article notes that "executives at the other majors were nervous about the UMG move" and "privately, some appeared annoyed."

  

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  Opera Sees "Dramatic" Rise From Microsoft's Ballot

  Posted: March 19th, 2010, 7:33am MDT by kdawson

  TheReal_sabret00the notes a TechRadar piece reporting that Opera Software has seen a doubling from normal download numbers on average since Microroft's browser-choice screen lit up in Europe. The UK saw an 85% increase and for other countries it was larger still: Poland 328%, Spain 215%, and Italy 202%. Hakon Wium Lie, CTO of Opera Software, said "A multitude of browsers will make the web more standardised and easier to browse".

  

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  Health Care Reform

  Posted: March 19th, 2010, 6:48am MDT by CmdrTaco

  It appears that today might be the end of a very long road to health care reform. There's been a lot of debate on the subject really leading back before the election. The mainstream sounds like an echo chamber, so I'm hoping you guys have better insight. Will this bill do what the administration claims to do, or is it as bad for the future of America as Fox says?

  

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  Millennium Prize Awarded For Perelman's Poincaré Proof

  Posted: March 19th, 2010, 6:12am MDT by timothy

  epee1221 writes "The Clay Mathematics Institute has announced its acceptance of Dr. Grigori Perelman's proof of the Poincaré conjecture and awarded the first Millennium Prize. Poincaré questioned whether there exists a method for determining whether a three-dimensional manifold is a spherical: is there a 3-manifold not homologous to the 3-sphere in which any loop can be gradually shrunk to a single point? The Poincaré conjecture is that there is no such 3-manifold, i.e. any boundless 3-manifold in which the condition holds is homeomorphic to the 3-sphere. A sketch of the proof using language intended for the lay reader is available at Wikipedia."

  

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  Microsoft Docs Indicate Future Xbox 360 Support For USB Storage

  Posted: March 19th, 2010, 4:26am MDT by Soulskill

  Internal Microsoft documents obtained by Joystiq indicate that its Xbox 360 console will gain support for USB storage devices some time this Spring. "According to the document, the USB mass storage device must be at least 1GB and the system will do a compatibility check. 'The system partition occupies 512 MB of space, and by default the consumer partition occupies the remainder of the device capacity, or 16 GB, whichever is smaller.' Upon inserting a blank USB storage device, 'consumers are offered two choices: "Configure now" or "Customize."' The 'Configure now' option will use 'the entire device capacity, up to the maximum of 512 MB plus 16 GB,' meaning, regardless of the overall size of the device you're using, the Xbox will only enable 16 GB of usable, non-system storage. The 'Customize' option will allow you to 'preserve some pre-existing, non-console data on the device' such as music." There have also been rumors of a new, smaller form factor for the 360, and hacker Ben Heck has given his thoughts on some leaked motherboard pictures.

  

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  UK ID Cards Could Be Upgraded To Super ID Cards

  Posted: March 19th, 2010, 3:01am MDT by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes "Gadget lovers are used to punishing upgrade cycles but now it seems that the British ID card could be replaced with a 'super' ID card just a couple of years after the first one was released. The new card could be used to buy goods or services online, or to prove identity over the web. It's a bit of a kick in the teeth for the people who have already paid £30 for a 1st gen card that can't do any of these things."

  

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  Lag Analysis For the PlayStation Move

  Posted: March 19th, 2010, 2:26am MDT by Soulskill

  The $64,000 question about Sony's upcoming motion control system, the PlayStation Move, is how responsive it will be compared to traditional console controllers and its counterparts from Nintendo and Microsoft. Eurogamer slowed down videos of Sony's tech demo software to establish a rough baseline latency that developers will have to work with. Quoting: "While exact latency measurements aren't possible in these conditions, a ballpark idea of the level of response isn't a problem at all. The methodology is remarkably straightforward. Keep your hand as steady as possible, then make fast motions with the controller. Count the frames between your hand moving, and the motion being carried out on-screen. Equally illuminating is to stop your movement suddenly, then count the frames necessary for your on-screen counterpart to catch up. While not 100 per cent accurate, repeat the process enough times and the frame difference becomes fairly evident. Bearing all of that in mind, and recognizing that we don't know how much latency the display itself is adding, I'd say that a ballpark figure of around 133ms of controller lag (give or take a frame) seems reasonable, certainly not the ultra-fast crispness of response we see from games like Burnout Paradise or Modern Warfare, but fine for most of the applications you would want from such a controller."

  

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  Bruce Bueno de Mesquita Uses Games To See the Future

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 11:48pm MDT by timothy

  parallel_prankster writes "Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is a professor of politics at New York University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California. In his new book, The Predictioneer (The Predictioneer's Game in the US), he describes a computer model based on game theory which he — and others — claim can predict the future with remarkable accuracy. The website also has a game page where he provides an online version of the game and information on how to play." The (semi-paywalled; may need to register) New Scientist has a story on de Mesquita, too; a snippet: "Over the past 30 years, Bueno de Mesquita has made thousands of predictions about hundreds of issues from geopolitics to personal problems. Overall, he claims, his hit rate is about 90 per cent."

  

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  Microsoft Announces Windows 7 SP1

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 8:37pm MDT by timothy

  CWmike writes "Microsoft has announced service packs for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, but declined to set a release date or a schedule for getting a beta in users' hands. A company spokesman said Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) will primarily contain 'minor updates,' including patches and hotfixes that will have been delivered earlier via the Windows Update service, rather than new features. One of the latter: an updated Remote Desktop client designed to work with RemoteFX, the new remote-access platform set to debut in SP1 for Windows Server 2008 R2. Windows Server 2008 R2 will also be upgraded to SP1, Microsoft said, presumably at the same time as Windows 7 since the two operating systems share a single code base. Besides RemoteFX — which Microsoft explained Wednesday in an entry on the Windows virtualization team's blog — Server 2008 R2 will also include a feature dubbed 'Dynamic Memory,' which lets IT staff adjust guest virtual machines' memory on the fly. Microsoft did not spell out a timetable for the service packs, saying only that it would provide more information as release milestones approach."

  

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  Piezo Crystals Harness Sound To Generate Hydrogen

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 7:11pm MDT by timothy

  MikeChino writes "Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have discovered that a mix of zinc oxide crystals, water, and noise pollution can efficiently produce hydrogen without the need for a dirty catalyst like oil. To generate the clean hydrogen, researchers produced a new type of zinc oxide crystals that absorb vibrations when placed in water. The vibrations cause the crystals to develop areas with strong positive and negative charges — a reaction that rips the surrounding water molecules and releases hydrogen and oxygen. The mechanism, dubbed the piezoelectrochemical effect, converts 18% of energy from vibrations into hydrogen gas (compared to 10% from conventional piezoelectric materials), and since any vibration can produce the effect, the system could one day be used to generate power from anything that produces noise — cars whizzing by on the highway, crashing waves in the ocean, or planes landing at an airport."

  

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  Details Emerge on Futurama's "Rebirth" (and Return)

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 5:36pm MDT by timothy

  Svippy writes "As revealed last summer, Futurama will be returning this year, and while there were conflicts about the cast of the show in the late summer of 2009, a deal was eventually secured. Last week, Comedy Central confirmed the airing of the first episode, 'Rebirth,' will be 24 June 2010. Several other details related to plot and production have surfaced over the months, and for those interested, a full article is available on the subject."

  

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  Details Emerge On Futurama's "Rebirth" (and Return)

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 5:36pm MDT by timothy

  Svippy writes "As revealed last summer, Futurama will be returning this year, and while there were conflicts about the cast of the show in the late summer of 2009, a deal was eventually secured. Last week, Comedy Central confirmed the airing of the first episode, 'Rebirth,' will be 24 June 2010. Several other details related to plot and production have surfaced over the months, and for those interested, a full article is available on the subject."

  

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  1st Trial Under California Spam Law Slams Spammer

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 4:42pm MDT by timothy

  www.sorehands.com writes "In the first case brought by a spam recipient to actually go to trial in California, the Superior Court of California held that people who receive false and deceptive spam emails are entitled to liquidated damages of $1,000 per email under California Business & Professions Code Section 17529.5. In the California Superior Court ruling (PDF), Judge Marie S. Weiner made many references to the fact that Defendants used anonymous domain name registration and used unregistered business names in her ruling. This is different from the Gordon case, where one only had to perform a simple whois lookup to identify the sender; here, Defendants used 'from' lines of 'Paid Survey' and 'Your Promotion' with anonymously registered domain names. Judge Weiner's decision makes it clear that the California law is not preempted by the I CAN-SPAM Act. This has been determined in a few prior cases, including my own. (See http://www.barbieslapp.com/spam for some of those cases.)"

  

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  High-Tech Research Moving From US To China

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 4:00pm MDT by timothy

  Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that American companies like Applied Materials are moving their research facilities and engineers to China as the country develops a high-tech economy that increasingly competes directly with the United States. Applied Materials set up its latest solar research labs in China after estimating that China would be producing two-thirds of the world's solar panels by the end of this year and their chief technology officer, Mark R. Pinto, is the first CTO of a major American tech company to move to China. 'We're obviously not giving up on the US,' says Pinto. 'China needs more electricity. It's as simple as that.' Western companies are also attracted to China's huge reservoirs of cheap, highly skilled engineers and the subsidies offered by many Chinese cities and regions, particularly for green energy companies. Applied Materials decided to build their new $250 million research facility in Xi'an after the city government sold them a 75-year land lease at a deep discount and is reimbursing the company for roughly a quarter of the lab complex's operating costs for five years."

  

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  Google Slams Viacom For Secret YouTube Uploads

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 3:11pm MDT by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Reuters: "Google, Inc. accused Viacom, Inc. of secretly uploading its videos to YouTube even as the media conglomerate publicly denounced the online video site for copyright infringement, according to court documents made public on Thursday." As "statements from the corporate counsel's office" go, this post on the YouTube blog is pretty hot reading.

  

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  Coming Soon, Smartphone-Based Banking

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 2:21pm MDT by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes "Banks will be offering a new service at the end of the year that will let customers take a photo of a paper check and have it be deposited in their bank accounts, making the smartphone one step closer to an ATM."

  

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  Startup's Submerged Servers Could Cut Cooling Costs

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 1:55pm MDT by timothy

  1sockchuck writes "Are data center operators ready to abandon hot and cold aisles and submerge their servers? An Austin startup says its liquid cooling enclosure can cool high-density server installations for a fraction of the cost of air cooling in traditional data centers. Submersion cooling using mineral oil isn't new, dating back to the use of Fluorinert in the Cray 2. The new startup, Green Revolution Cooling, says its first installation will be at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (also home to the Ranger supercomputer). The company launched at SC09 along with a competing liquid cooling play, the Iceotope cooling bags."

  

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  Obama Adminstration Withholds FoIA Requests More Often Than Bush's

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 1:31pm MDT by timothy

  bonch writes "Agencies under the Obama administration cite security provisions to withhold information more often than they did under the Bush administration. For example, the 'deliberative process' exemption of the Freedom of Information Act was used 70,779 times in 2009, up from the 47,395 of 2008. Amusingly, the Associated Press has been waiting three months for the government to deliver records on its own Open Government Directive."

  

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  Obama Administration Withholds FoIA Requests More Often Than Bush's

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 1:31pm MDT by timothy

  bonch writes "Agencies under the Obama administration cite security provisions to withhold information more often than they did under the Bush administration. For example, the 'deliberative process' exemption of the Freedom of Information Act was used 70,779 times in 2009, up from the 47,395 of 2008. Amusingly, the Associated Press has been waiting three months for the government to deliver records on its own Open Government Directive."

  

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  Killer Convicted, Using Dog DNA Database

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 1:04pm MDT by timothy

  lee1 writes "It turns out that the UK has a DNA database — for dogs. And this database was recently used to apprehend a South London gang member who used his dog to catch a 16-year-old rival and hold him while he stabbed him to death. The dog was also accidentally stabbed, and left blood at the scene. The creation of human DNA databases has led to widespread debates on privacy; but what about the collation of DNA from dogs or other animals?"

  

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  What Free Antivirus Do You Install On Windows?

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 12:43pm MDT by timothy

  Techman83 writes "After years of changing between AVG Free + Avast, it's coming time to find a new free alternative for friends/relatives who run Windows. AVG and Avast have been quite good, but are starting to bloat out in size, and also becoming very misleading. Avast recently auto updated from 4.8 to 5 and now requires you to register (even for the free version) and both are making it harder to actually find the free version. Is this the end of reasonable free antivirus, or is there another product I can entrust to keep the 'my computer's doing weird things' calls to a minimum?"

  

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  3-D Printer Creates Buildings From Dust and Glue

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 12:20pm MDT by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes "D-Shape, an innovative new 3-D printer, builds solid structures like sculptures, furniture, even buildings from the ground up. The device relies on sand and magnesium glue to actually build structures layer by layer from solid stone. The designer, Enrico Dini, is even talking with various organizations about making the printer compatible with moon dust, paying the way for an instant moonbase!"

  

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  Court Says Parents Can Block PA "Sexting" Prosecutions

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 12:02pm MDT by timothy

  mikesd81 writes "In the first federal appeals court opinion dealing with 'sexting,' a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled Wednesday that parents could block the prosecution of their children on child pornography charges for appearing in photographs found on some classmates' cellphones. Miller vs. Mitchell (PDF) began in 2008 when school officials in Tunkhannock, Pa., discovered seminude and nude photographs of some female students on other student's phones. George Skumanick Jr., the DA at the time, said the students and their parents could be prosecuted if they did not participate in an after-school 'education program.' The unanimous ruling of the judges, Thomas L. Ambro, Michael A. Chagares and Walter K. Stapleton, criticized the district attorney's reliance on the girls' presence in the photographs as a basis for the potential charges. 'Appearing in a photograph provides no evidence as to whether that person possessed or transmitted the photo,' said the opinion, by Judge Ambro."

  

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  Quantum State Created In Largest Object Yet

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 11:18am MDT by samzenpus

  SpuriousLogic writes "A team of researchers have created a 'quantum state' in an object billions of times larger than ever before. From the article: 'Such states, in which an object is effectively in two places at once, have until now only been accomplished with single particles, atoms and molecules. In this experiment, published in the journal Nature, scientists produced a quantum state in an object billions of times larger than previous tests. The team says the result could have significant implications in quantum computing.'"

  

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  Berners-Lee Calls For Government Data Transparency

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 10:41am MDT by samzenpus

  eldavojohn writes "Two months ago, Tim Berners-Lee unveiled a UK Government data project with the goal to make government data more useful for everyone. Today he is calling on the rest of the world governments to become more transparent with their nonsensitive data. After only a few months, his project boasts around forty applications for using government data (screen shot example here). The BBC article notes the interesting uses of public data in India and Brazil that are disappointingly lacking in other countries — even the United States. Hopefully the US's data.gov will evolve to hosting apps instead of just data."

  

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  Frog Foam Photosynthesis

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 10:00am MDT by samzenpus

  Garrett Fox writes "University of Cincinnati researchers describe a method of getting photosynthesis from a high-surface-area foam containing enzymes that produce sugar using light and CO2 (abstract). Oddly, the foam itself is derived from a species of frog. More interesting is that the technique doesn't use whole cells or apparently even chloroplasts. The researchers claim 'chemical conversion efficiencies approaching 96%,' as well as tolerance for deliberately high-CO2 environments."

  

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  Filming For the Hobbit Begins In July

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 9:55am MDT by samzenpus

  krou writes "Sir Ian McKellen has revealed that filming for The Hobbit and its sequel is scheduled to begin in July, and will take approximately a year to complete. Casting is now 'taking place in LA, London and New York', and Del Torro is already 'living in Wellington, close to the Jacksons' and the studio in Miramar'. Apparently the script is still being worked on, and 'the first draft is crammed with old and new friends, again on a quest in Middle-earth'. The planned sequel to The Hobbit is to be an original story not written by Tolkien, covering the 60 years between The Hobbit, and the Lord of the Rings."

  

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  Filming For The Hobbit Begins In July

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 9:55am MDT by samzenpus

  krou writes "Sir Ian McKellen has revealed that filming for The Hobbit and its sequel is scheduled to begin in July, and will take approximately a year to complete. Casting is now 'taking place in LA, London and New York,' and [director Guillermo] Del Torro is already 'living in Wellington, close to the Jacksons' and the studio in Miramar.' Apparently the script is still being worked on, and 'the first draft is crammed with old and new friends, again on a quest in Middle-earth.' The planned sequel to The Hobbit is to be an original story not written by Tolkien, covering the 60 years between The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings."

  

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  YouTube's Bandwidth Bill May be Zero

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 8:55am MDT by samzenpus

  MrShaggy writes "Credit Suisse made headlines this summer when it estimated that YouTube was costing Google a half a billion dollars in 2009 as it streamed 75 billion videos. But a new report from Arbor Networks suggests that even though Google is approaching 10 percent of the net's traffic, it's got so much fiber optic cable it is simply trading traffic, with no payment involved, with the net's largest ISPs. 'I think Google's transit costs are close to zero,' said Craig Labovitz, the chief scientist for Arbor Networks and a longtime internet researcher. Arbor Networks, which sells network monitoring equipment used by about 70 percent of the net's ISPs, likely knows more about the net's ebbs and flows than anyone outside of the National Security Agency."

  

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  MP3 Player Tax Proposed In Canada

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 8:13am MDT by samzenpus

  Interoperable writes "The status of sharing music in Canada is, to some extent, ambiguous. This is partly due to a levy imposed on blank media, CD-Rs and cassette tapes, that compensates artists and the recording studios for a loss of revenue due to copying. Legislation proposed by the NDP and supported by the Bloc Quebecois would extend that levy to cover MP3 players with the intent of decriminalizing audio file sharing for Canadian citizens. The proposed legislation, however, faces opposition from the governing Conservative party; the Liberal party has agreed to discuss the proposed bill."

  

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  I Want My GTV

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 7:29am MDT by samzenpus

  theodp writes "The NY Times reports that Google and Intel have teamed with Sony to develop a platform called Google TV to bring the Web into the living room through a new generation of TVs and set-top boxes. The three companies have tapped Logitech for peripheral devices, including a remote with a tiny keyboard. Based on Google's Android operating system, the TV technology runs on Intel's Atom chips. Google is expected to deliver a toolkit to outside programmers within the next couple of months, and products based on the software could appear as soon as this summer."

  

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  GM Working On Interactive Windshields

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 6:43am MDT by samzenpus

  this_boat_is_real writes "Rather than project info onto a portion of the windshield, GM's latest experiment uses the entire windshield as a display. Small ultraviolet lasers project data gleaned from sensors and cameras onto the glass. General Motors geeks are working alongside researchers from several universities to develop a system that integrates night vision, navigation and on-board cameras to improve our ability to see — and avoid — problems, particularly in adverse conditions like fog."

  

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  Professor Ditches Grades For XP System

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 5:57am MDT by samzenpus

  schliz writes "Like in World of Warcraft, students of Indiana University's game design classes start as Level 1 avatars with 0 XP, and progress by completing quests solo, as guilds, or in 'pick up groups.' Course coordinator Lee Sheldon says students are responding with 'far greater enthusiasm,' and many specifics of game design could also be directly applied to the workforce. These included: clearly defining goals for workers; providing incremental rewards; and balancing effort and reward."

  

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  Can You Fight DRM With Patience?

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 3:39am MDT by Soulskill

  As modern DRM schemes get more annoying and invasive, the common wisdom is to vote with your wallet and avoid supporting developers and publishers who include such schemes with their games. Or, if you simply must play it, wait a while until outcry and complaints have caused the DRM restrictions to be loosened. But will any of that make game creators rethink their stance? An article at CNet argues that gamers are, in general, an impatient bunch, and that trait combined with the nature of the games industry means that progress fighting DRM will be slow or nonexistent. Quoting: "Increasingly so, the joke seems to be on the customers who end up buying this software when it first comes out. A simple look back at some controversial titles has shown us that after the initial sales come, the publisher later removes the vast majority of the DRM, leaving gamers to enjoy the software with fewer restrictions. ... Still, [waiting until later to purchase the game] isn't a good long-term solution. Early sales are often one of the big quantifiers in whether a studio will start working on a sequel, and if everyone were to wait to buy games once they hit the bargain price, publishers would simply stop making PC versions. There's also no promise that the really heavy bits of DRM will be stripped out at a later date, except for the fact that most publishers are unlikely to want to maintain the cost of running the activation, and/or online verification servers for older software."

  

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  P2P and P2P Links Ruled Legal In Spain

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 1:12am MDT by samzenpus

  Nieriko writes After three years of arduous litigation, Jesus Guerra Calderon, owner of both a small bar and the P2P link webpage 'elrincondejesus.com' has beaten the SGAE (something like the Spanish version of the RIAA). The historic ruling states not only the legality of link webpages, but also the legality of P2P file-sharing networks. Quoting the judge: 'P2P Networks as mere data transmision networks between individual internet users, do not breach any rights protected by the Intellectual Property Law.' Downloading a file (from a P2P network) for private use is perfectly legal as long as there is no lucrative or collective use of the downloaded copy."

  

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  Devs Finally Finding Success With Xbox Indie Games

  Posted: March 18th, 2010, 12:36am MDT by Soulskill

  McBacon writes with this excerpt from Wired.co.uk: "Often dismissed as a failed venture, the Xbox Indie Games programme has earned successful man-and-his-dog developers tens of thousands of pounds from sales of their homebrew games. Wired explores the success stories of this hidden marketplace. ... now, more than a year since its launch, the Xbox Indie Games are seeing something of a revival. Microsoft has made huge strides to improve the service, games are beginning to be taken more seriously and success stories are becoming more and more common. Especially for [James] Silva, a New York-based developer, who became an impromptu Indie celebrity after his game The Dishwasher won Microsoft's Dream-Build-Play competition. He says he's 'absolutely thrilled' to have seen I Maed a Gam3 w1th Zomb1es!!!1 — his latest game — become a cult hit, for gamers to flock to it in record numbers and to have sold over 200,000 copies."

  

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  MIT Developing Self-Assembling Computer Chips

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 10:41pm MDT by samzenpus

  An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on have released research detailing how molecules in chips can self-assemble, potentially reducing manufacturing costs. The researchers have developed a technique in which polymers automatically fall into place to create an integrated circuit."

  

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  Science and the Shortcomings of Statistics

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 8:30pm MDT by samzenpus

  Kilrah_il writes "The linked article provides a short summary of the problems scientists have with statistics. As an intern, I see it many times: Doctors do lots of research but don't have a clue when it comes to statistics — and in the social science area, it's even worse. From the article: 'Even when performed correctly, statistical tests are widely misunderstood and frequently misinterpreted. As a result, countless conclusions in the scientific literature are erroneous, and tests of medical dangers or treatments are often contradictory and confusing.'"

  

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  Solar Powered Augmented Reality Contact Lenses

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 6:45pm MDT by samzenpus

  ByronScott writes "Want eyesight that could put your neighborhood cyborg to shame? Well, University of Washington professor Babak Amir Parviz and his students are working on solar powered contact lenses embedded with hundreds of semitransparent LEDs, letting wearers experience augmented reality right through their eyes. If their research proves successful, the applications — from health monitoring to gameplay to just plain bionic sight -could be endless."

  

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  Solar-Powered Augmented Reality Contact Lenses

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 6:45pm MDT by samzenpus

  ByronScott writes "Want eyesight that could put your neighborhood cyborg to shame? Well, University of Washington professor Babak Amir Parviz and his students are working on solar-powered contact lenses embedded with hundreds of semitransparent LEDs, letting wearers experience augmented reality right through their eyes. If their research proves successful, the applications — from health monitoring to gameplay to just plain bionic sight — could be endless."

  

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  Disgruntled Ex-Employee Remotely Disables 100 Cars

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 5:35pm MDT by samzenpus

  hansamurai writes "Over one hundred cars equipped with a Webtech Plus blackbox were remotely disabled when a former employee of dealership Texas Auto Center got hold of his employer's database of users. Webtech Plus is repossession software that allows the dealership to disable a car's ignition or trigger the horn to honk when a payment is due. Owners had to remove the battery to stop the incessant honking. After the dealership began fielding an unusually high number of calls from upset car owners, they changed the passwords to the Webtech Plus software and then traced the IP address used to access the client to its former employee."

  

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  Lord British's Lost Lunar Rover Found, After 37 Years

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 4:20pm MDT by timothy

  Lanxon writes "The guy behind Ultima Online once bought an old Russian rover, despite it being lost on the moon somewhere. And now, using images released by NASA, it has been located on the moon's surface after nearly four decades of being MIA, reports Wired. Richard Garriott, who created the Ultima Online multiplayer game, bought the Lunokhod 2 in a Sotheby's auction in New York in 1998. And so new was the discovery of his lost possession, he hadn't even heard that the craft had been discovered when Wired spoke to him." (Richard Garriott is also well known as Lord British.)

  

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  Complex Life Found Under 600 Feet of Antarctic Ice

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 3:33pm MDT by timothy

  Chroniton writes "NASA ice scientists have found a shrimp-like creature and a possible jellyfish 'frolicking' beneath 600 feet of solid Antarctic ice, where only microbes were expected to live. The odds of finding two complex lifeforms after drilling only an 8-inch-wide hole suggests there may be much more. And if such life is possible beneath Earth's oceans, why not elsewhere, like Europa?"

  

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  Wikipedia's Assault On Patent-Encumbered Codecs

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 2:44pm MDT by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes "The Open Video Alliance is launching a campaign today called Let's Get Video on Wikipedia asking people to create and post videos to Wikipedia articles (good, encyclopedia style videos only!). Because all video must be in patent-free codecs (theora for now), this will make Wikipedia by far the most likely site for an average internet user to have a truly free and open video experience. The campaign seeks to 'strike a blow for freedom' against a wave of h.264 adoption in otherwise open HTML5 video implementations."

  

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  Wikipedia's Assault On Patent-Encumbered Codecs

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 2:44pm MDT by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes "The Open Video Alliance is launching a campaign today called Let's Get Video on Wikipedia, asking people to create and post videos to Wikipedia articles. (Good, encyclopedia-style videos only!) Because all video must be in patent-free codecs (theora for now), this will make Wikipedia by far the most likely site for an average internet user to have a truly free and open video experience. The campaign seeks to 'strike a blow for freedom' against a wave of h.264 adoption in otherwise open HTML5 video implementations."

  

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  Mississippi Makes Caller ID Spoofing Illegal

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 2:21pm MDT by timothy

  marklyon writes "HB 872, recently signed into law by Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, makes Caller ID spoofing illegal. The law covers alterations to the caller's name, telephone number, or name and telephone number that is shown to a recipient of a call or otherwise presented to the network. The law applies to PSTN, wireless and VoIP calls. Penalties for each violation can be up to $1,000 and one year in jail. Blocking of caller identification information is still permitted."

  

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  Japanese Researchers Develop World's Fastest Book Scanner

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 1:49pm MDT by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes "IEEE Spectrum reports that Tokyo University researchers have developed a superfast book scanner that uses lasers and a high-speed camera to achieve a capture rate of 200 pages per minute. You just quickly flip the book pages in front of the system and it digitizes the pages, building a 3D model of each and reconstructing it as a normal flat page. The prototype is large and bulky, but if this thing could be made smaller, one day we could scan a book or magazine in seconds using a smartphone." The article mentions Google's similar dewarping system; the difference here is speed.

  

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  Firmware Hack Allows Video Analysis On a Canon Camera

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 12:50pm MDT by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes "Researchers from the University of Liege in Belgium have been able to perform real-time video analysis on a regular Canon digicam (video link) without any hardware modification. The results are shown directly on the digicam's screen. They use a hacked version of a popular open-source alternative firmware for Canon cameras: CHDK. This is a proof-of-concept that computer vision algorithms can now be embedded on regular Canon digicams with little effort (CHDK is coded in C). What other popular vision algorithms could be implemented? For what purpose?" You can get some idea about ViBe from this abstract at IEEE; basically, it allows background extraction in moving images.

  

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  Android 2.1 Finally Makes It To Droid

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 12:30pm MDT by timothy

  MrSmith0011000100110 writes "The lovely people over at AndroidCentral have broken the announcement that Android 2.1 is finally coming to the Motorola Droid, with actual proof on Verizon's Droid support page (PDF). I don't know about my Droid brethren, but I'm pretty excited to see the new series of Android ROMs for the Droid phone that are based on a stock Android 2.1. As most of us know, the existing 2.1 ROMs can be buggy as hell and either running vanilla 2.1 or a custom ROM; but this phone is still a tinkerer's best friend."

  

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  The Movie Studios' Big 3D Scam

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 12:00pm MDT by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes "There's a lot of things wrong with 3D movies. Avatar's 3D was well executed, but Alice's 3D was really bad, like all 2D-to-3D conversions. And yet, studios are reconverting 2D movies—including classics—into 3D to milk this fad. On top of that, the theaters are not prepared for 3D, with bad eyeglass optics and dark projections. In this article, a top CG supervisor in a prominent visual effects studio in Los Angeles calls it as it is: it's all a big scam by the movie studios."

  

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  Aussie Gamers Dress As Zombies To Raise R18+ Awareness

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 11:47am MDT by samzenpus

  swandives writes "Australian gamers will dress as zombies to raise awareness about the lack of an R18+ rating for video games in the country. The protest will begin at Hyde Park Fountain on March 27 and lumber through Sydney, raising awareness of the need for a higher classification rating and hopefully causing a bit of havoc at the same time! Computerworld Australia has pictures of previous zombie protests in the lead-up to the event. Australia has a long history of lobbying for an R18+ games classification but, even after a decade, video games are banned from sale if they exceed the maximum M15+ classification. So far, the list of banned titles includes 7 Sins, Risen, Left 4 Dead 2 and Dark Sector. Others, like Alien vs. Predator, were initially banned but appealed the rating and are now MA15+."

  

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  Cisco's New Router — Trouble For Hollywood

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 11:11am MDT by Soulskill

  Shakrai writes "Time Magazine has published an article about the impact of Cisco's new CRS-3 router on the business practices of the MAFIAA. This new router was previously mentioned here on Slashdot and is expected to alleviate internet bottlenecks that currently impede steaming video-on-demand services. Some of the highlights from the article: 'The ability to download albums and films in a matter of seconds is a harbinger of deep trouble for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which would prefer to turn the clock back, way back. ... The hard fact is that the latest developments at Cisco, Google and elsewhere may do more than kill the DVD and CD and further upset entertainment-business models that have changed little since the Mesozoic Era. With superfast streaming and downloading, indie filmmakers will soon be able to effectively distribute feature films online and promote them using social media such as Facebook and Twitter. ... Meanwhile, both the MPAA and the RIAA continue to fight emerging technologies like peer-to-peer file sharing with costly court battles rather than figuring out how to appeal to the next generation of movie enthusiasts and still make a buck."

  

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  Planck Mission Releases Images of Galactic Dust

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 10:46am MDT by Soulskill

  davecl writes "The Planck satellite has released its first new science images, showing the large scale filamentary structure of cold dust in our own galaxy. This release coincides with the completion of its first survey of the entire sky a couple of weeks ago. There's lots more work to be done, and more observations to be made, before results are ready on the Big Bang, but these images demonstrate Planck's performance and capability. More information is available on the Planck mission blog (which I maintain)."

  

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  The Death of the US-Mexico Virtual Fence

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 10:28am MDT by Soulskill

  eldavojohn writes "A couple of years ago it was announced that the Boeing-built virtual fence at the US-Mexico border didn't work. Started in 2006, SBInet has been labeled a miserable failure and finally halted. A soon-to-be-released GAO report is expected to be overwhelmingly critical of SBInet, causing DHS Chief Janet Napolitano to announce yesterday that funding for the project has been frozen. It's sad that $1.4 billion had to be spent on the project before the discovery that this poorly conceived idea would not work."

  

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  ACLU Sues Over Legality of "Targeted Killing" By Drones

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 9:46am MDT by Soulskill

  MacAndrew writes "The ACLU has sued the United States Government to enforce a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for 'the release of records relating to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles — commonly known as 'drones' — for the purpose of targeting and killing individuals since September 11, 2001.' (Complaint.) The information sought includes the legal basis for use of the drones, how the program is managed, and the number of civilian deaths in areas of operation such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen. The ACLU further claims that 'Recent reports, including public statements from the director of national intelligence, indicate that US citizens have been placed on the list of targets who can be hunted and killed with drones.' Aside from one's view of the wisdom, effectiveness, and morality of these military operations, the inclusion of US citizens suggests that summary remote-control executions are becoming routine. Especially given the difficulty in locating and targeting individuals from aircraft, risks of human and machine error are obvious, and these likely increase as the robots become increasingly autonomous (please no Skynet jokes). This must give pause to anyone who's ever spent time coding or debugging or even driving certain willful late model automobiles, and the US government evidently doesn't want to discuss it."

  

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  Scientists Demonstrate Mammalian Tissue Regeneration

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 9:02am MDT by Soulskill

  telomerewhythere writes "A quest that began over a decade ago with a chance observation has reached a milestone: the identification of a gene that may regulate regeneration in mammals. The absence of this single gene, called p21, confers a healing potential in mice long thought to have been lost through evolution and reserved for creatures like flatworms, sponges, and some species of salamander. 'Unlike typical mammals, which heal wounds by forming a scar, these mice begin by forming a blastema, a structure associated with rapid cell growth and de-differentiation as seen in amphibians. According to the Wistar researchers, the loss of p21 causes the cells of these mice to behave more like embryonic stem cells than adult mammalian cells, and their findings provide solid evidence to link tissue regeneration to the control of cell division. "Much like a newt that has lost a limb, these mice will replace missing or damaged tissue with healthy tissue that lacks any sign of scarring," said the project's lead scientist.' Here is the academic paper for those with PNAS access."

  

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  Is Microsoft About To Declare Patent War On Linux?

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 8:20am MDT by Soulskill

  Glyn Moody writes "Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, has just published a piece called 'Apple v. HTC: A Step Along the Path of Addressing IP Rights in Smartphones.' In it, he notes that today's smartphones are all about the 'software stack,' not the 'radio stack,' and that 'as the IP situation settles in this space and licensing takes off, we will see the patent royalties applicable to the smartphone software stack settle at a level that reflects the increasing importance software has as a portion of the overall value of the device. In the interim, though, we should expect continued activity.' That 'activity' obviously means lawsuits against those producing those software stacks, and Gutierrez seems to be hinting strongly that Microsoft intends to join in. So where does that leave all the Linux-based stacks such as the increasingly-popular Android? Is this just a clever way for Microsoft to start a patent war on Linux without appearing to do so?"

  

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  Toshiba Ends Incandescent Bulb Production After 120 Years

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 7:37am MDT by Soulskill

  angry tapir writes "Toshiba has stopped production of mass-market incandescent light bulbs, putting an end to a 120-year manufacturing history of the products. The company, which is one of Japan's largest makers of lighting products, had planned to halt production next year but brought up the date by a year. It will now focus on more energy efficient products, including LED (light-emitting diode) lights, which contain a handful of white LEDs and draw a fraction of the power of incandescent bulbs."

  

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  Facebook Attracting More Visitors Than Google.com

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 6:54am MDT by Soulskill

  vikingpower writes "Internet research firm Hitwise just broke the news: last week, Facebook attracted 7.07 percent of the internet traffic in the USA, compared to 7.03 percent for Google. This is the first time google.com has been out of the top spot since it surpassed MySpace in 2007, and reflects a change in the way people use internet. They tend to privilege social interaction sites above 'passive' search engines." Facebook still has a ways to go if you include Google's non-search properties, which bring the total up to 11.03% of traffic.

  

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  How Students Use Wikipedia

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 6:09am MDT by kdawson

  crazybilly writes "First Monday recently released a study about how college students actually use Wikipedia. Not surprisingly, they found, 'Overall, college students use Wikipedia. But, they do so knowing its limitation. They use Wikipedia just as most of us do — because it is a quick way to get started and it has some, but not deep, credibility.' The study offers some initial data to help settle the often heated controversy over Wikipedia's usefulness as a research tool and how it affects students' research."

  

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  The Problems With Video Game Voice Acting

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 4:50am MDT by Soulskill

  The Guardian's Games blog explores the tendency of modern video games to suffer from poor voice acting, a flaw made all the more glaring by increasingly precise and impressive graphics. Quoting: "Due to the interactive nature of games, actors can't be given a standard film script from which they're able to gauge the throughline of their character and a feel for the dramatic development of the narrative. Instead, lines of dialogue need to be isolated into chunks so they can be accessed and triggered within the game in line with the actions of each individual player. Consequently, the performer will usually be presented with a spreadsheet jammed with hundreds of single lines of dialogue, with little sense of context or interaction. ... But according to David Sobolov, one of the most experienced videogame voice actors in the world (just check out his website), the significant time pressures mean that close, in-depth direction is not always possible. 'Often, there's a need to record a great number of lines, so to keep the session moving, once we've established the tone of the character we're performing, the director will silently direct us using the spreadsheet on the screen by simply moving the cursor down the page to indicate if he/she liked what we did. Or they'll make up a code, like typing an 'x' to ask us to give them another take.' It sounds, in effect, like a sort of acting battery farm, a grinding, dehumanizing production line of disembodied phrases, delivered for hours on end. Hardly conducive to Oscar-winning performances."

  

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  The Bloodhound Will Stay On the Ground At 1,000 mph

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 3:10am MDT by kdawson

  Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that engineers designing the world's fastest car, the Bloodhound SSC, built to smash the world land speed record of 763 mph set by the Thrust SuperSonic Car in 1997, believe they have a solution to keep the vehicle flat on the ground at 1,000 mph after initial iterations of the car's aerodynamic shape produced dangerous amounts of lift at the vehicle's rear. John Piper, Bloodhound's technical director, said: 'We've had lift as high as 12 tonnes, and when you consider the car is six-and-a-half tonnes at its heaviest — that amount of lift is enough to make the car fly.' The design effort has been aided by project sponsor Intel, who brought immense computing power to bear on the lift problem. Before Intel's intervention, the design team had worked through 11 different 'architectures' in 18 months. The latest modelling work run on Intel's network investigated 55 configurations in eight weeks. By playing with the position and shape of key elements of the car's rear end, the design team found the best way to manage the shockwave passing around and under the vehicle as it goes supersonic. 'At Mach 1.3, we've close to zero lift, which is where we wanted to be,' says Piper. In late 2011, the Bloodhound, powered by a rocket bolted to a Eurofighter-Typhoon jet engine, will mount an assault on the land speed record, driving across a dried up lakebed known as Hakskeen Pan, in the Northern Cape of South Africa."

  

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  Study Finds That Video Games Hinder Learning In Young Boys

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 1:35am MDT by Soulskill

  dcollins writes "Researchers at Denison University in Ohio have shown that giving PlayStations to young boys leads to slower progress in reading and writing skills. Quoting: 'The study is the first controlled trial to look at the effects of playing video games on learning in young boys. That is to say, the findings aren't based on survey data of kids' game habits, but instead on a specific group of children that were randomly assigned to receive a PlayStation or not ... Those with PlayStations also spent less time engaged in educational activities after school and showed less advancement in their reading and writing skills over time than the control group, according to tests taken by the kids. While the game-system owners didn't show significant behavioral problems, their teachers did report delays in learning academic skills, including writing and spelling.'"

  

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  The State of Robotic Surgery

  Posted: March 17th, 2010, 12:06am MDT by kdawson

  kkleiner writes "Robotic surgery is experiencing explosive growth in America's operating rooms, and the unquestioned industry leader in this field is the DaVinci robot, made by Intuitive Surgical. Only 14% of prostate surgeries in the US last year took place not using the DaVinci. Installations have grown from 210 systems seven years ago to 1,395 today. Although typically used for smaller surgeries like prostate removal and hysterectomies, the system was recently used for a kidney transplant, and more complicated procedures are expected in the future. The DaVinci is really just the first wave of robotic surgery as technology continues to push clumsy human hands out of the operating room." The article mentions some of the downsides, or perhaps the growing pains, of DaVinci robotic surgery: "According to a large study of Medicare patients, robotic prostate surgery led to fewer in-hospital complications, but had worse results for impotence and incontinence ..." Another company makes a simulator to train surgeons on the DaVinci. Embedded in the article is a 2009 TED talk on DaVinci by a surgeon.

  

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  Scottish Wave Energy Plans Move Forward

  Posted: March 16th, 2010, 9:00pm MDT by kdawson

  It's been a long time coming (2007, 2005, and 2002 respectively), but the project to harness wave energy off the Scots coast is finally coming together. Reader krou writes: "The BBC is reporting that ten sites on the seabed off Scotland in Pentland Firth and around Orkney have been leased to energy companies with the hopes of generating wave and tidal energy. 'Six sites have been allocated for wave energy developments potentially generating 600 megawatts of power and four for tidal projects, also generating 600 MW.' The leases were awarded to SSE Renewables Developments, Aquamarine Power, ScottishPower Renewables, E.ON, Pelamis Wave Power, OpenHydro Site Developments, and Marine Current Turbines. Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond said that 'These waters have been described as the Saudi Arabia of marine power and the wave and tidal projects unveiled today — exceeding the initial 700MW target capacity — underline the rich natural resources of the waters off Scotland.'"

  

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  Simpler "Hello World" Demonstrated In C

  Posted: March 16th, 2010, 8:03pm MDT by kdawson

  An anonymous reader writes "Wondering where all that bloat comes from, causing even the classic 'Hello world' to weigh in at 11 KB? An MIT programmer decided to make a Linux C program so simple, she could explain every byte of the assembly. She found that gcc was including libc even when you don't ask for it. The blog shows how to compile a much simpler 'Hello world,' using no libraries at all. This takes me back to the days of programming bare-metal on DOS!"

  

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  C-Span Posts Full Archives Online

  Posted: March 16th, 2010, 6:59pm MDT by kdawson

  An anonymous reader sends word that C-Span has completed its project of making all of its footage available online. "The archives, at C-SpanVideo.org, cover 23 years of history and five presidential administrations and are sure to provide new fodder for pundits and politicians alike. The network will formally announce the completion of the C-Span Video Library on Wednesday. Having free online access to the more than 160,000 hours of C-Span footage is like being able to Google political history using the "I Feel Lucky" button every time,' said Rachel Maddow, the liberal MSNBC host."

  

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  MS Virtual PC Flaw Defeats Windows Defenses

  Posted: March 16th, 2010, 5:01pm MDT by kdawson

  Coop's Troops writes "An exploit writer at Core Security Technologies has discovered a serious vulnerability that exposes users of Microsoft's Virtual PC virtualization software to malicious hacker attacks. The vulnerability, which is unpatched, essentially allows an attacker to bypass several major security mitigations — DEP, SafeSEH and ASLR — to exploit the Windows operating system. As a result, some applications with bugs that are not exploitable when running in a not-virtualized operating system are rendered exploitable if running within a guest OS in Virtual PC."

  

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  One Year Later, Zer01 Web Site Disappears

  Posted: March 16th, 2010, 4:17pm MDT by kdawson

  alphadogg writes "Zer01 Mobile — making promises of flat rate, no contract, unlimited cell phone service — made its grand entrance at the annual CTIA wireless convention about a year ago, but now the company's Web site has disappeared. The site recently began redirecting visitors to Google.com. Zer01, which was lauded for its plans in the mainstream press, aligned itself with a multilevel marketing company called Global Verge (whose founder had earlier been convicted of securities fraud), and the two companies began recruiting salespeople who paid a monthly fee to be part of a sales program. (Since then, Global Verge and Zer01 parted ways and Global Verge filed a lawsuit against its former partner.) But no mobile service from Zer01 ever materialized. Salespeople were promised payment based on how many other salespeople they signed up to the program, although few appear to have received payment. But as late as the fall CTIA show in October, Zer01's CEO was still promising to launch the mobile service."

  

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  Japanese Turning To "Therapeutic Ringtones"

  Posted: March 16th, 2010, 3:39pm MDT by samzenpus

  indiavision writes "A host of young Japanese are drawn to the allure of 'therapeutic ringtones' — a genre of melodies that promises to ease a range of day-to-day gripes, from chronic insomnia to a rotten hangover. Developed by Matsumi Suzuki, the head of the Japan Ringing Tone Laboratory, an eight-year-old subsidiary of the Japan Acoustic Laboratory, the tones are a hit with housewives as well as teenagers."

  

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  Users Rejecting Security Advice Considered Rational

  Posted: March 16th, 2010, 3:32pm MDT by kdawson

  WeeBit writes "Researchers have different ideas as to why people fail to use security measures. Some feel that regardless of what happens, users will only do the minimum required. Others believe security tasks are rejected because users consider them to be a pain. A third group maintains user education is not working. [Microsoft Research's Cormac] Herley offers a different viewpoint. He contends that user rejection of security advice is based entirely on the economics of the process." Here is Dr. Herley's paper, So Long, And No Thanks for the Externalities: The Rational Rejection of Security Advice by Users (PDF).

  

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  Federal Agents Quietly Using Social Media

  Posted: March 16th, 2010, 2:45pm MDT by kdawson

  SpuriousLogic passes along this excerpt from the ChiTrib: "The Feds are on Facebook. And MySpace, LinkedIn, and Twitter, too. US law enforcement agents are following the rest of the Internet world into popular social-networking services, going undercover with false online profiles to communicate with suspects and gather private information, according to an internal Justice Department document that offers a tantalizing glimpse of issues related to privacy and crime-fighting. ... The document... makes clear that US agents are already logging on surreptitiously to exchange messages with suspects, identify a target's friends or relatives and browse private information such as postings, personal photographs, and video clips. Among other purposes: Investigators can check suspects' alibis by comparing stories told to police with tweets sent at the same time about their whereabouts. Online photos from a suspicious spending spree... can link suspects or their friends to robberies or burglaries." The FoIA lawsuit was filed by the EFF, which has posted two documents obtained from the action, from the DoJ and Internal Revenue (more will be coming later). The rights group praises the IRS for spelling out limitations and prohibitions on deceptive use of social media by its agents — unlike the DoJ. The US Marshalls and the BATFE could not find any documents related to the FoIA request, so presumably they have no guidelines or prohibitions in this area.

  

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  Japan To Standardize Electric Vehicle Chargers

  Posted: March 16th, 2010, 2:05pm MDT by kdawson

  JoshuaInNippon writes "Four major Japanese car manufacturers and one power company (Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota, and Tokyo Electric) have teamed up with over 150 business and government entities in Japan to form a group to promote standardization in electric vehicle chargers and charging stations. The group hopes to leverage current Japanese electric vehicle technology and spread standardization throughout the country, as well as aim towards worldwide acceptance of their standardized charger model. In a very Japanese manner, the group has decided to call themselves 'CHAdeMO,' a play on the English words 'charge' and 'move,' as well as a Japanese pun that encourages tea-drinking while waiting the 15+ minutes it will take to charge one's vehicle battery."

  

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  Waledac Botnet Now Completely Offline, Experts Say

  Posted: March 16th, 2010, 1:18pm MDT by kdawson

  Trailrunner7 writes "After Microsoft's actions to take down the Waledac botnet last month, there was some question about whether the operation was much more than a grab for headlines that would have little effect on actual spam levels or malware infections. But more than three weeks after the takedown, researchers say that Waledac has essentially ceased communications and its spam operations have dropped to near zero. One researcher said that Waledac now seems to be abandoned. 'It looks crippled, if not dead,' said Jose Nazario, a senior security researcher at Arbor Networks."

  

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  US Sits On Supply of Rare, Tech-Crucial Minerals

  Posted: March 16th, 2010, 12:35pm MDT by kdawson

  We've recently discussed China's position as the linchpin of the world's supply of rare earths, and their rumblings about restricting exports of of these materials crucial to the manufacture of everything from batteries to wind turbines. Now an anonymous reader sends this MSNBC piece on the status of the US's supply of rare earths. "China supplies most of the rare earth minerals found in technologies such as hybrid cars, wind turbines, computer hard drives, and cell phones, but the US has its own largely untapped reserves that could safeguard future tech innovation. Those reserves include deposits of both 'light' and 'heavy' rare earths... 'There is already a shortage, because there are companies that already can't get enough material,' said Jim Hedrick, a former USGS rare earth specialist who recently retired. 'No one [in the US] wants to be first to jump into the market because of the cost of building a separation plant,' Hedrick explained. ... [S]uch a plant requires thousands of stainless steel tanks holding different chemical solutions to separate out all the individual rare earths. The upfront costs seem daunting. Hedrick estimated that opening just one mine and building a new separation plant might cost anywhere from $500 million to $1 billion and would require a minimum of eight years. [But the CEO of a rare earth supply company said] 'From what I see, security of supply is going to be more important than the prices.'"

  

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  Microsoft Previews IE9 — HTML5, SVG, Fast JS

  Posted: March 16th, 2010, 11:44am MDT by kdawson

  suraj.sun sends this excerpt from CNET on Microsoft's preview of IE9 in Las Vegas just now. "At its Mix 10 conference Tuesday, Microsoft gave programmers, Web developers, and the world at large a taste of things to come with its Web browser. Specifically, Microsoft released what it's calling the Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview, a prototype designed to show off the company's effort to improve how the browser deals with the Web as it exists today and, as important, to add support for new Web technologies that are coming right now. Coming in the new version is support for new Web standards including plug-in-free video; better performance with graphics, text, and JavaSript by taking advantage of modern computing hardware. One big change in the JavaScript engine Hachamovitch is proud of is its multicore support. As soon as a Web page is loaded, Chakra assigns a processing core to the task of compiling JavaScript in the background into fast code written in the native language of the computer's processor." Microsoft didn't say what codec they were using for the HTML5 video demo, but the Technologizer says it's H.264.

  

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  Jobcentre Apologizes For Anti-Jedi Discrimination

  Posted: March 16th, 2010, 11:01am MDT by CmdrTaco

  An anonymous reader writes "Chris Jarvis, 31, is described as a Star Wars fan and member of the International Church of Jediism. Said church's intergalactic hoodie uniform is at odds with the strict doctrine of the Department for Work and Pensions, which may require Jobcentre 'customers' to remove crash helmets or hoods for 'security reasons.' Following his ejection, Jarvis filled out a complaint form and within three days got a written apology from branch boss Wendy Flewers. She said: "We are committed to provide a customer service which embraces diversity and respects customers' religion."

  

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  Jobcentre Apologizes For Anti-Jedi Discrimination

  Posted: March 16th, 2010, 11:01am MDT by CmdrTaco

  An anonymous reader writes "Chris Jarvis, 31, is described as a Star Wars fan and member of the International Church of Jediism. Said church's intergalactic hoodie uniform is at odds with the strict doctrine of the Department for Work and Pensions, which may require Jobcentre 'customers' to remove crash helmets or hoods for 'security reasons.' Following his ejection, Jarvis filled out a complaint form and within three days got a written apology from branch boss Wendy Flewers. She said: 'We are committed to provide a customer service which embraces diversity and respects customers' religion.'"

  

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  Designer Builds Coffin For Xbox's Suffering RROD

  Posted: March 16th, 2010, 10:34am MDT by samzenpus

  angry tapir writes "The Xbox 360 RROD coffin was created by Aussie designer Alexis Vanamois, and it does exactly what it says on the tin. It's the ultimate final resting place for 'bricked' Xbox 360 consoles that have suffered the Red Ring of Death; it even has a cavity for your controller!"

  

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  Blind Soldier Uses Tongue To 'See'

  Posted: March 16th, 2010, 10:19am MDT by CmdrTaco

  Zen found this story about a blind soldier using a lollypop-sized tongue sensor to 'see.' The system actually enables him to walk and read unaided. The guy says, "It feels like licking a nine-volt battery or like popping candy. The camera sends signals down onto the lollypop and onto your tongue, you can then determine what they mean and transfer it to shapes."

  

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  Blind Soldier Uses Tongue To "See"

  Posted: March 16th, 2010, 10:19am MDT by CmdrTaco

  Zen found this story about a blind soldier using a lollypop-sized tongue sensor to 'see.' The system actually enables him to walk and read unaided. The guy says, "It feels like licking a nine-volt battery or like popping candy. The camera sends signals down onto the lollypop and onto your tongue, you can then determine what they mean and transfer it to shapes."

  

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  Google Readying To Pull Out of China

  Posted: March 16th, 2010, 9:35am MDT by CmdrTaco

  Sagelinka writes "Both Google and the Chinese government appear to be leaking word that the search firm may soon shutter its operations there as negotiations between the two break down. Google first threatened to halt its operations in China after disclosing in January that an attack on its network from inside China was aimed at exposing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. At the time, Google also said it was reconsidering its willingness to censor search results of users in China as required by the government. 'I think Google thought China would be flexible,' said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group. Google has since been negotiating with the Chinese government to find a way to continue operating in the country. Google did not respond today to requests for comment on the state of the negotiations with China."

  

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  Blazing Fast Password Recovery With New ATI Cards

  Posted: March 16th, 2010, 8:55am MDT by CmdrTaco

  An anonymous reader writes "ElcomSoft accelerates the recovery of Wi-Fi passwords and password-protected iPhone and iPod backups by using ATI video cards. The support of ATI Radeon 5000 series video accelerators allows ElcomSoft to perform password recovery up to 20 times faster compared to Intel top of the line quad-core CPUs, and up to two times faster compared to enterprise-level NVIDIA Tesla solutions. Benchmarks performed by ElcomSoft demonstrate that ATI Radeon HD5970 accelerated password recovery works up to 20 times faster than Core i7-960, Intel's current top of the line CPU unit."

  

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  MySpace To Sell User Data

  Posted: March 16th, 2010, 8:16am MDT by CmdrTaco

  OnlyJedi writes "Hot on the news of Netflix canceling its latest contest over privacy concerns, news has spread that MySpace is going in the opposite direction. Apparently, the one-time leading social network is now selling user data to third party collection firms. From the article, the data that InfoChimps has listed includes 'user playlists, mood updates, mobile updates, photos, vents, reviews, blog posts, names and zipcodes.' InfoChimps is a reseller that deals with individuals and groups, from academic researchers to marketers and industry analysts. So if you're worried about your data on MySpace being sold off to anybody with a few hundred dollars, now's the time to delete that little-used account."

  

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  11th Circuit Eliminates 4th Amend. In E-mail

  Posted: March 16th, 2010, 7:34am MDT by CmdrTaco

  Artefacto writes "Last Thursday, the Eleventh Circuit handed down a Fourth Amendment case, Rehberg v. Paulk, that takes a very narrow view of how the Fourth Amendment applies to e-mail. The Eleventh Circuit held that constitutional protection in stored copies of e-mail held by third parties disappears as soon as any copy of the communication is delivered. Under this new decision, if the government wants get your e-mails, the Fourth Amendment lets the government go to your ISP, wait the seconds it normally takes for the e-mail to be delivered, and then run off copies of your messages."

  

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  Deposit Checks To Your Bank By Taking a Photo

  Posted: March 16th, 2010, 6:50am MDT by kdawson

  Pickens writes "The Mercury News reports that consumers will soon be able to deposit a check by snapping a photo of it with a cell phone and transmitting an encrypted copy to their bank. Although some critics contend paperless deposits are an attempt by the banking industry to eliminate 'float,' the standard one- or two-day waiting period between the time someone writes a check and the time the money is actually taken out of their account, actually remote-deposit capture started out as a way for big companies and financial institutions to process huge numbers of checks without having to ship them around the country. 'Our customers are becoming more and more tech-savvy,' said an SVP for mobile banking at Citibank. 'We're trying to support those people on the go.' Although the process adds a new wrinkle to concerns about fraud and the privacy of financial data, banks and the technology companies helping them say they have largely overcome these concerns. Another bank SVP said, 'For many institutions struggling to raise deposits and differentiate, this is an outstanding offering they can roll out inexpensively [note: interstitial]. It's a sticky product.'"

  

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  FCC's Broadband Plan May Cost You Money

  Posted: March 16th, 2010, 6:07am MDT by kdawson

  At ten minutes past midnight the FCC released their National Broadband Plan. Judging by the available coverage, few reporters spent the night poring over it. The BBC at least posted something in the morning hours, but it quotes Enderle, so that gives you some idea of its sourcing. Business Week notes the plan's cool (not to say frigid) reception among broadcasters. Dave Burstein of FastNet News did some real digging. His take as of 4:00 am Eastern time is that the plan will cost most Americans money, and won't provide much if any relief to the poor. We'll see many more details and nuances emerge over the day. Update: 03/16 19:53 GMT by KD : The FCC plan (PDF) is here.

  

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  UK Internet Filtering Bill Watered Down

  Posted: March 16th, 2010, 2:48am MDT by kdawson

  superapecommando writes in with news that in the UK, Liberal Democratic peers will soften their filtering amendment to the Digital Economy Bill, to allow those wrongfully accused of illegal filesharing to sue the rightsholders in court. The previous version of the Bill had drawn instant criticism from some of the world's largest technology companies, including eBay, Google, and Yahoo, who signed an open letter against the filtering proposal. Blogger Glyn Moody summed up opposition to the Bill, stating that in its previous form, it was "utterly one-sided, where the only winners are a music recording industry too lazy to change, and the losers are everyone else."

  

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  Golden Nanocages To Put the Heat On Cancer Cells

  Posted: March 15th, 2010, 11:30pm MDT by kdawson

  ElectricSteve writes "Researchers have been searching for a highly targeted medical treatment that attacks cancer cells but leaves healthy tissue alone. The approach taken by scientists at Washington University in St. Louis is to use 'gold nanocages' that, when injected, selectively accumulate in tumors. When the tumors are later bathed in laser light, the surrounding tissue is barely warmed, but the nanocages convert light to heat, killing the malignant cells. ... Although the tumors took up enough gold nanocages to give them a black cast, only 6 percent of the injected particles accumulated at the tumor site. They would like that number to be closer to 40 percent so that fewer particles would have to be injected. They plan to attach tailor-made ligands to the nanocages that recognize and lock onto receptors on the surface of the tumor cells. ... The scientists at WUSTL have just received a five-year, $2.1M grant from the National Cancer Institute to continue their work with photothermal therapy." Note that Gizmag features a stupid Subscribe nag that covers your screen after about a minute; sounds like a job for NoScript. Last year we discussed somewhat similar research using titanium dioxide nanoparticles to target a particular kind of brain cancer.

  

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  Ushahidi Crowd-Sources Crisis Response

  Posted: March 15th, 2010, 8:09pm MDT by kdawson

  We mentioned late last year how open source software called Ushahidi — which means 'testimony' in Swahili — developed for election monitoring in Kenya was being used to similar effect in Afghanistan. Now reader Peace Corps Online adds a report from the NY Times that Usahidi's is now becoming a hero of the Haitian and Chilean earthquakes. "Ushahidi is used to gather distributed data via SMS, email, or web and visualize it on a map or timeline. The program was developed after violence erupted during Kenya's disputed election in 2007. Ory Okolloh, a prominent Kenyan lawyer and blogger, had gone back to Kenya to vote and observe the election. After receiving threats about her work, she returned to South Africa where she posted her idea of an Internet mapping tool to allow people to report anonymously on violence and other misdeeds. Volunteers built the Ushahidi Web platform over a long weekend, and the site began plotting on a map, using the locations given by informants, user-generated cellphone reports of riots, stranded refugees, rapes, and deaths. When the Haitian earthquake struck, Ushahidi went into action receiving thousands of messages reporting trapped victims; the same happened following the Chile earthquake. The Washington Post also used Ushahidi during the recent blizzards to build a site to map road blockages and the location of available snowplows and blowers. 'Ushahidi suggests a new paradigm in humanitarian work,' writes Anand Giridharadas. 'The old paradigm was one-to-many: foreign journalists and aid workers jet in, report on a calamity, and dispense aid with whatever data they have. The new paradigm is many-to-many-to-many: victims supply on-the-ground data; a self-organizing mob of global volunteers translates text messages and helps to orchestrate relief; then journalists and aid workers use the data to target the response.'"

  

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  XML Co-Founder Joins Google, Blasts iPhone

  Posted: March 15th, 2010, 6:12pm MDT by kdawson

  conner_bw writes "XML co-founder Tim Bray has taken the job of 'Developer Advocate' at Google. Don't other companies call that position 'Evangelist?' Because he sure doesn't mince words against the iPhone in his first sermon: 'It's a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers. The people who create the apps serve at the landlord's pleasure and fear his anger.'"

  

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  China To Connect Its High-Speed Rail To Europe

  Posted: March 15th, 2010, 5:25pm MDT by kdawson

  MikeChino sends in this excerpt from Inhabitat: "China already has the most advanced and extensive high-speed rail lines in the world, and soon that network will be connected all the way to Europe and the UK. With initial negotiations and surveys already complete, China is now making plans to connect its HSR line through 17 other countries in Asia and Eastern Europe in order to connect to the existing infrastructure in the EU. Additional rail lines will also be built into South East Asia as well as Russia, in what will likely become the largest infrastructure project in history." They hope to get it done within 10 years, with China providing the financing in exchange for raw materials, in some cases.

  

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  Bethesda Unveils New Co-op Dungeon Crawler

  Posted: March 15th, 2010, 4:37pm MDT by Soulskill

  Bethesda Softworks took advantage of the recent Game Developers Conference to take the wraps off a new game called Hunted: The Demon's Forge that they're partnering with development studio inXile to create. It's planned for the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3, though no release window has been set. It's a third-person action game with a swords & sorcery setting, and it features two heroes as they fight their way through monster-filled dungeons. The game is designed such that two users can play together online (no split-screen), each controlling one of the heroes. ShackNews summed it up thus: "From what I saw, Hunted rolled up ideas from a number of different games to create its modern reinterpretation of the dungeon crawl. There was the raw action appeal of wading through waves of goblins, spiders, and related denizens. The skill system and weapon upgrades bring in the character development side from a role playing game. And the co-op design with its warrior and archer dynamic introduces the reward of playing together like an MMO."

  

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  Pirate Bay Legal Action Dropped In Norway

  Posted: March 15th, 2010, 3:55pm MDT by Soulskill

  superapecommando writes "Copyright holders have given up legal efforts to force Norwegian ISP Telenor to block filesharing site The Pirate Bay, one of the parties to the case said. The copyright holders, led by Norway's performing rights society TONO and by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry Norway (IFPI Norge), have lost two rounds in the Norwegian court system, and have now decided against appealing the case to Norway's supreme court."

  

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  25 Years of the .com gTLD

  Posted: March 15th, 2010, 3:13pm MDT by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "The domain COM was installed as one of the first set of top-level domains when the Domain Name System was first implemented for use on the Internet in January 1985. The internet celebrates a landmark event on the 15th of March — the 25th anniversary of the day the first .com name was registered. Of the 250 million websites, there are over 80 million active .com sites. In March 1985, Symbolics computers of Cambridge, Massachusetts entered the history books with an internet address ending in .com (however, on 27 August 2009, it was sold to XF.com Investments). That same year another five companies jumped on a very slow bandwagon. Here is a list of the 100 oldest still-existing registered .com domains."

  

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  Attack of the Killer Electrons

  Posted: March 15th, 2010, 2:32pm MDT by Soulskill

  Hugh Pickens writes "At the peak of a magnetic storm, the number of highly energetic 'killer electrons' strong enough to damage electronics and human tissue can increase by a factor of more than ten times, posing a danger to spacecraft, satellites, and astronauts. Killer electrons can penetrate satellite shielding, so if electrical discharges take place in vital components, a satellite can be damaged or even rendered inoperable. For many years, the mechanism by which killer electrons are produced has remained poorly understood, in spite of physicists' attempts at solving this puzzle. Now the ESA reports that data shows the increase in the creation of a substantial number of killer electrons is due to a two-step process. First, the initial acceleration is due to the strong shock-related magnetic field compression. Immediately after the impact of the interplanetary shock wave, Earth's magnetic field lines began wobbling at ultra low frequencies. In turn, these ULF waves effectively accelerate the seed electrons (provided by the first step) to become killer electrons. 'These new findings help us to improve the models predicting the radiation environment in which satellites and astronauts operate. With solar activity now ramping up, we expect more of these shocks to impact our magnetosphere over the months and years to come,' says Philippe Escoubet, ESA's Cluster mission manager."

  

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  Nokia Claims Apple Does "Legal Alchemy" To Mask IP Theft

  Posted: March 15th, 2010, 1:47pm MDT by Soulskill

  CWmike writes "Nokia asked a federal judge last week to toss out Apple's antitrust claims, saying the iPhone maker indulged in 'legal alchemy' when it tried to divert attention from its infringement of Nokia's intellectual property. The filing was the latest salvo in a battle that began in October 2009 when handset maker Nokia sued Apple, saying the iPhone infringed on 10 of its patents, and that Apple was trying 'to get a free ride on the back of Nokia's innovation.' Apple countered in December with a lawsuit of its own that not only claimed Nokia infringed 13 of its patents, but that Nokia also violated antitrust law by legally attacking Apple after it declined to pay what it called 'exorbitant royalties' and refused to give Nokia access to iPhone patents. 'These non-patent counterclaims are designed to divert attention away from free-riding off of Nokia's intellectual property, a practice Apple evidently believes should only be of paramount concern when it is the alleged victim,' Nokia charged in the motion. Apple is on a legal roll, having also recently sued the maker of Google's Nexus One, HTC, for patent infringement."

  

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  BioShock 2's First DLC Already On Disc

  Posted: March 15th, 2010, 1:28pm MDT by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes with this quote from 1Up: "Trouble is brewing in Rapture. The recently released Sinclair Solutions multiplayer pack for BioShock 2 is facing upset players over the revelation that the content is already on the disc, and the $5 premium is an unlock code. It started when users on the 2K Forums noticed that the content is incredibly small: 24KB on the PC, 103KB on the PlayStation 3, and 108KB on the Xbox 360. 2K Games responded with a post explaining that the decision was made in order to keep the player base intact, without splitting it between the haves and have-nots."

  

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  Yale Law Student Wants Government To Have Everybody's DNA

  Posted: March 15th, 2010, 1:06pm MDT by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "Michael Seringhaus, a Yale Law School student, writes in the NY Times, 'To Stop Crime, Share Your Genes.' In order to prevent discrimination when it comes to collecting DNA samples from criminals (and even people who are simply arrested), he proposes that the government collect a DNA profile from everybody, perhaps at birth (yes, you heard that right)." Regarding the obvious issue of genetic privacy, Seringhaus makes this argument: "Your sensitive genetic information would be safe. A DNA profile distills a person’s complex genomic information down to a set of 26 numerical values, each characterizing the length of a certain repeated sequence of 'junk' DNA that differs from person to person. Although these genetic differences are biologically meaningless — they don’t correlate with any observable characteristics — tabulating the number of repeats creates a unique identifier, a DNA 'fingerprint.' The genetic privacy risk from such profiling is virtually nil, because these records include none of the health and biological data present in one’s genome as a whole."

  

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  The Coming Botnet Stock Exchange

  Posted: March 15th, 2010, 12:22pm MDT by Soulskill

  Trailrunner7 writes "Robert Hansen, a security researcher and CEO of SecTheory, has been gleaning intelligence from professional attackers in recent months, having a series of off-the-record conversations with spammers and malicious hackers in an effort to gain insight into their tactics, mindset and motivation. 'He's not the type to hack randomly, he's only interested in targeted attacks with big payouts. Well, the more I thought about it the more I thought that this is a very solvable problem for bad guys. There are already other types of bad guys who do things like spam, steal credentials and DDoS. For that to work they need a botnet with thousands or millions of machines. The chances of a million machine botnet having compromised at least one machine within a target of interest is relatively high.' Hansen's solution to the hacker's problem provides a glimpse into a business model we might see in the not-too-distant future. It's an evolutionary version of the botnet-for-hire or malware-as-a-service model that's taken off in recent years. In Hansen's model, an attacker looking to infiltrate a specific network would not spend weeks throwing resources against machines in that network, looking for a weak spot and potentially raising the suspicion of the company's security team. Instead, he would contact a botmaster and give him a laundry list of the machines or IP addresses he's interested in compromising. If the botmaster already has his hooks into the network, the customer could then buy access directly into the network rather than spending his own time and resources trying to get in."

  

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  Color E-Book Displays Coming From E Ink Next Year

  Posted: March 15th, 2010, 11:40am MDT by Soulskill

  waderoush writes "E Ink, which makes the monochrome electrophoretic screens used in the Amazon Kindle, the Barnes & Noble Nook, the Sony Reader line, and other e-readers, is gearing up to supply manufacturers with the first color versions of its displays by early next year, according to an Xconomy interview with T.H. Peng, a vice president with Taiwan's Prime View International, which bought E Ink last year. Peng argues that E Ink has nothing to fear from the e-book apps on the Apple iPad and other devices with color LCDs, which, in his view, produce more eye strain and aren't as suitable for digital reading. Nonetheless, the company says its first color screens in 2011 will have newspaper-quality color, followed within a couple of years by improved versions that can handle magazine-style content."

  

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  US Intelligence Planned To Destroy WikiLeaks

  Posted: March 15th, 2010, 10:59am MDT by CmdrTaco

  An anonymous reader writes "This document is a classified (SECRET/NOFORN), 32-page US counterintelligence investigation into WikiLeaks (PDF). 'The possibility that current employees or moles within DoD or elsewhere in the US government are providing sensitive or classified information to Wikileaks.org cannot be ruled out.' It concocts a plan to fatally marginalize the organization. Since WikiLeaks uses 'trust as a center of gravity by protecting the anonymity and identity of the insiders, leakers or whistleblowers,' the report recommends 'The identification, exposure, termination of employment, criminal prosecution, legal action against current or former insiders, leakers, or whistleblowers could potentially damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others considering similar actions from using the Wikileaks.org Web site.' [As two years have passed since the date of the report, with no WikiLeaks' source exposed, it appears that this plan was ineffective.] As an odd justification for the plan, the report claims that 'Several foreign countries including China, Israel, North Korea, Russia, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe have denounced or blocked access to the Wikileaks.org website.' The report provides further justification by enumerating embarrassing stories broken by WikiLeaks — US equipment expenditure in Iraq, probable US violations of the Chemical Warfare Convention Treaty in Iraq, the battle over the Iraqi town of Fallujah and human rights violations at Guantanamo Bay."

  

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  How To Guarantee Malware Detection

  Posted: March 15th, 2010, 10:19am MDT by CmdrTaco

  itwbennett writes "Dr. Markus Jakobsson, Principal Scientist at PARC, explains how it is possible to guarantee the detection of malware, including zero-day attacks and rootkits and even malware that infected a device before the detection program was installed. The solution comes down to this, says Jakobsson: 'Any program — good or bad — that wants to be active in RAM has no choice but to take up some space in RAM. At least one byte.'"

  

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  Speed-Assembling Servers

  Posted: March 15th, 2010, 9:31am MDT by CmdrTaco

  Nieriko writes "The Planet is holding competitions to speed-assemble rack-mounted servers. It's like watching latter-day Marines field-strip and assemble their weapons. There is a video on YouTube about this incredible contest. Looks pretty challenging."

  

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  Iran Hacks US Spy Sites

  Posted: March 15th, 2010, 8:45am MDT by CmdrTaco

  superapecommando writes "Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps hacked into 29 websites affiliated with US espionage networks, Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency reported on Sunday. 'The hacked websites acted against Iran's national security under the cover of human rights activities,' Fars reported. It did not disclose details of the attacks. The Internet has been used by Iranian opposition groups who contested the results of last year's elections there to organize demonstrations and share information about protests and arrests. The Revolutionary Guards is a military group that was founded after Iran's 1979 revolution. The group includes conventional army, navy, air force, and intelligence units, as well as the Basij paramilitary force and various business units."

  

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  The Seven Hidden Browsers In the Windows Ballot

  Posted: March 15th, 2010, 8:09am MDT by CmdrTaco

  Barence writes "Two weeks ago Microsoft started rolling out a Windows update within the European Union, giving every Internet Explorer user the option to switch browsers. As well as the five big names, anyone who scrolls the ballot window to the right will find seven further browsers, none of which is exactly a household name. There's no quality control being offered, either — they're simply the '12 most widely-used web browsers that run on Windows 7,' based on usage share in the European Economic Area. But what are these unknown browsers actually like? To find out, seven PC Pro staff installed a browser each, used it exclusively for a day, and ran a variety of tests. The browser-by-browser verdict on the hidden seven: two are worth a look for specific reasons, the other five are only likely to give an internet novice a horribly outdated idea of what web browsing is like."

  

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  Nose Scanners — the New Face of Biometrics?

  Posted: March 15th, 2010, 7:26am MDT by CmdrTaco

  An anonymous reader writes "Forget fingerprints and ID cards, this photo story shows how the latest thing in biometrics is nose scanning! Bath university researchers have claimed that the nose will soon be able to be used as a way of identifying a person. Apparently the 'PhotoFace system captures a 3D image of a person's face by taking several photos lit from different angles to throw shadows on the face and then building a model of facial features. The software determined that there are six main nose shapes: Roman, Greek, Nubian, Hawk, Snub and Turn-up.' Some cool pictures make this worth a click — but what happens if a person breaks their nose?!"

  

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  Humans Continue To Be 'Weak Link' In Data Security

  Posted: March 15th, 2010, 6:46am MDT by CmdrTaco

  ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes "Nearly 90 percent of IT workers in the UK have said a laptop in their organization has been reported lost or stolen, new research has found. Sixty-one percent said that this then resulted in a data breach, according to the '2010 Human Factor in Laptop Encryption Study: United Kingdom,' a report produced by the Ponemon Institute for Absolute Software."

  

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  SpaceX Conducts First On-Pad Test-Fire of Falcon 9

  Posted: March 15th, 2010, 6:03am MDT by timothy

  FleaPlus writes "On Saturday, SpaceX successfully conducted a launch dress rehearsal and on-pad test firing of their completed Falcon 9 rocket, with the 15-story tall rocket held down to prevent launch (videos). SpaceX is one of several likely competitors (ranging from the upstart Blue Origin to the more experienced Boeing) in NASA's new plans for commercial crew transportation to low-Earth orbit. SpaceX has been cleared by Cape Canaveral for the Falcon 9's first orbital launch next month, carrying a test model of the company's Dragon cargo/crew capsule, although CEO/CTO Elon Musk has cautioned that they're still in the equivalent of 'beta testing' for the first few flights."

  

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  Scientology Tries To Block German Documentary

  Posted: March 15th, 2010, 2:59am MDT by timothy

  eldavojohn writes "The Guardian is reporting on the strained relationship that Scientology is having with the German government and the airing of a pesky documentary on Southwest Broadcasting. Until Nothing Remains, a $2.3 million documentary, is slotted to air on German television at the end of this month. It recounts the true story of Heiner von Rönn and his family's suffering when he tried to leave the Church of Scientology. A Scientology spokesperson called the film false and intolerant and also said they are investigating legal means to stop the film from being aired. More details on the film can be gleaned here."

  

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  In Israel, Potential Organ Donors Could Jump the Queue

  Posted: March 15th, 2010, 12:08am MDT by timothy

  laron writes "In Israel, a new law is in the making: Holders of donor cards and their families would get preference if they should need an organ for themselves. Apparently this initiative faces resistance from Orthodox rabbis, who hold that organ donation is against religious law. Jacob Lavee, director of the heart transplant unit at Israel's Sheba Medical Center, and one of the draftees of this new law, hopes that a broader pool of organs will ultimately benefit everyone, but acknowledges that one of his primary motivations is 'to prevent free riders.' (Apparently receiving an organ is OK under religious law.)"

  

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  Mario Reduced To 8x8 With Open Source and Arduino

  Posted: March 14th, 2010, 8:50pm MDT by timothy

  adeelarshad82 writes "The open-source Arduino electronics platform has received a ton of attention from the hardware enthusiast community. And one more follower is joining the fray — Mario himself. The mustachioed plumber of console video game fame has been converted into an eight-by-eight LED matrix by Carnegie Mellon University student Chloe Fan. However, the game isn't quite the Mario you know from your legacy Nintendo Entertainment System. For starters, it's just lights. While one often sees the game's LED-backed grid used in devices like the open-source Monome, where it can function as a push-button toggle for music beats and effects, Fan's version of Mario uses the grid as a display only. Mario — or rather, a one-light representation of the game's hero — is controlled NES-style through the use of two buttons. One button makes Mario move forward; the other makes him leap into the air."

  

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  Good Language Choice For School Programming Test?

  Posted: March 14th, 2010, 7:01pm MDT by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes "The Australian Informatics Olympiad programming test is being run in a couple of months. I'm an experienced programmer and I'm thinking of volunteering to tutor interested kids at my children's school to get them ready. There will be children of all levels in the group, from those that can't write 'hello world' in any language, to somewhat experienced programmers. For those starting from scratch, I'm wondering what language to teach them to code in. Accepted languages are C, C++, Pascal, Java, PHP, Python and Visual Basic. I'm leaning towards Python, because it is a powerful language with a simple syntax. However, the test has a run-time CPU seconds limit, so using an interpreted language like Python could put the students at a disadvantage compared to using C. Is it better to teach them something in 2 months that they're likely to be able to code in but possibly run foul of the CPU time limit, or struggle to teach them to code in a more complicated syntax like C/C++ which would however give them the best chance of having a fast solution?"

  

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  SETI Is 50 Years Old; No Sign of ET

  Posted: March 14th, 2010, 6:08pm MDT by timothy

  EagleHasLanded writes "The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence is 50 years old next month, and still no sign of intelligent alien life. Paul Davies of the Beyond Center (also Chairman of the SETI Post-Detection Taskgroup) says it's time to re-think and expand the search for ET."

  

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  Filter Vendor Agrees Aussie Censorship Can't Work As Promised

  Posted: March 14th, 2010, 5:00pm MDT by timothy

  Acidspew writes "The Australian Government's plan to filter the Internet has caused furore and has been met with vehement objection. Many people have put their opinions forward regarding this matter, but this time around, M86 Security — the vendor that provided many ISPs equipment during the initial filter trials — has finally weighed in on the discussion. Six of the nine ISP participants in the URL-based Internet filter trial last year used M86's R3000 filtering kit. According to ARN: 'Internet filtering won't prevent people deliberately looking for inappropriate material from accessing blocked content, according to security vendor M86 Security.' The company continues by saying its filter gear was designed to be implemented into schools and enterprise businesses, not for an entire country. The article also touches on M86's views on censorship."

  

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  Microsoft Employees Love Their iPhones

  Posted: March 14th, 2010, 3:55pm MDT by timothy

  portscan writes "There is an entertaining and telling article in the Wall Street Journal about iPhone use by Microsoft employees. Apparently, despite it being frowned upon by senior management, iPhone use is rampant among the Redmond rank and file. The head of Microsoft's mobile division tried to explain it away as employees wanting 'to better understand the competition,' although few believe this. Nowhere does the article mention attempts by the company to understand why the iPhone is more attractive to much of Microsoft's tech-savvy workforce than the company's own products."

  

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  Obama Backs MPAA, RIAA, and ACTA

  Posted: March 14th, 2010, 2:51pm MDT by timothy

  boarder8925 writes "In a move sure to surprise no one, Obama has come out on the side of the MPAA/RIAA and has backed the ACTA: 'We're going to aggressively protect our intellectual property,' Obama said in his speech, 'Our single greatest asset is the innovation and the ingenuity and creativity of the American people [...] It is essential to our prosperity and it will only become more so in this century. But it's only a competitive advantage if our companies know that someone else can't just steal that idea and duplicate it with cheaper inputs and labor.'"

  

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  What Aspects of Open Source Projects Do You Avoid?

  Posted: March 14th, 2010, 1:49pm MDT by timothy

  paulproteus writes "I'm a Debian developer and a part-time contributor to a few smaller projects. I do a lot of free software-y and open source-y things. Sometimes, though, I don't do them. I figure some other Slashdotters might have similar hang-ups — we contribute to a project, but there are parts that we really dread thinking about. So I wrote a post about having these hang-ups, and I made a place on the web to share how others can help your project. What are the parts that, in your projects, you would be relieved if someone else looked at for you?"

  

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  How To Make Your Own iPhone RFID Reader

  Posted: March 14th, 2010, 12:52pm MDT by timothy

  andylim writes "It's been rumoured for some time now that Apple will include RFID technology in a future iPhone. An RFID-packing iPhone could interact with various objects including opening doors and it could even be used in shops to register items at the checkout. Beating Apple to the RFID punch, last year a company called Wireless Dynamics announced an iPhone RFID accessory called the iCarte, but if you'd rather make your own reader then you'll be interested to know how a research assistant at University College London has managed to build his own RFID iPhone accessory."

  

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  Classmates.com Settles Lawsuit Over Phony Friends

  Posted: March 14th, 2010, 11:50am MDT by Soulskill

  Hugh Pickens writes "Techflash reports that Classmates.com has agreed to pay up to $9.5 million to its users to settle a lawsuit that accused the social network of sending deceptive emails that made people believe their old friends from high school were reaching out to connect — only to discover, after paying for a membership, that their long-lost buddies were nowhere to be found. Lawyers for the plaintiffs asserted that Classmates had 'profited tremendously from their false or deceptive e-mail subject lines and related marketing tactics.' Under terms of the proposed settlement, Classmates.com members who upgraded to premium memberships after receiving one of the 'guestbook' emails will be able to choose either a $3 cash payout or a $2 credit toward the future purchase or renewal of a Classmates.com membership. Classmates.com is also among companies that have come under scrutiny for their use of 'post-transaction marketing' tactics — in which customers are given additional offers as part of the online payment process, sometimes in such a way that they aren't aware they're also signing up to pay more. A November 2009 US Senate Committee report said Classmates made more than $70 million through its relationship with post-transaction marketing firms. The Classmates Media unit posted $58.8 million in operating profit for 2009, up more than 24 percent from the previous year, making Classmates 'the most profitable social network in the world,' according to CEO Mark Goldston."

  

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  How Sony and Microsoft Hope To Crack the Motion Control Market

  Posted: March 14th, 2010, 10:41am MDT by Soulskill

  An editorial at Eurogamer delves into what Sony and Microsoft hope to achieve with their upcoming console motion control systems, despite entering the market several years after Nintendo set the standard. "The cards Sony has placed on the table this week suggest one answer to that question. It sees PlayStation Move as being an upgrade path for Wii owners — an invitation to the tens of millions of consumers who have invested in Nintendo's platform to swim upstream to the more powerful, HD-enabled system. Yet even Sony's most optimistic view of the market will be tempered by a dose of realism here. ... What's more likely — and what Sony are probably quietly hoping to achieve a significant proportion of the Move's success through — is that the technology will expand the appeal of the PS3 in the family setting." The Digital Foundry blog has an in-depth look at the PlayStation Move from Sony's event at the Game Developers Conference, saying, "... if there was one positive you could take away from the event, it was that Move is clearly a far more precise implementation than the Wiimote. Some of the games felt clearly more 'tactile' than the Wii equivalents."

  

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  Venezuela's Chavez To Limit Internet Freedom

  Posted: March 14th, 2010, 9:33am MDT by Soulskill

  terets1 writes "Reuters reports that Venezuela's leader, Hugo Chavez, issued a call on Saturday for 'internet controls' to prevent rumors and inaccurate reporting from spreading. He specifically cited a case in which a website incorrectly reported that a senior minister had been assassinated and kept the story up for two days. Many of Venezuela's opposition movements use social networking sites to communicate. It is not apparent at this time exactly what kind of controls Chavez has in mind or whether those controls will be similar to the controls in Iran that have been used to silence opposition movements. Chavez said, 'The Internet cannot be something open where anything is said and done. Every country has to apply its own rules and norms.'"

  

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  Google Makes Apps Script Available To All

  Posted: March 14th, 2010, 8:49am MDT by Soulskill

  theodp writes "Formerly only available to Apps Users, Google has made Apps Script available to everyone (sample script), including you Google Docs low-lifers. Apps Script lets you automate actions across spreadsheets, sites, calendars, and other Google services. No spamming, kids!"

  

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  Air Force Spaceplane Readying For Launch

  Posted: March 14th, 2010, 8:26am MDT by Soulskill

  FleaPlus writes "The US Air Force is currently preparing for the launch of the secretive X-37B OTV-1 (Orbital Test Vehicle 1) spaceplane, which was transferred from NASA to DARPA back in 2004 when NASA opted to focus its budget on lunar exploration. The reusable unmanned spaceplane is set to launch in April on top of a commercial Atlas V rocket, orbit for up to 270 days while testing a number of new technologies, reenter the atmosphere, then land on auto-pilot in California."

  

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  Mozilla Foundation Begins Redraft Process For MPL

  Posted: March 14th, 2010, 7:17am MDT by timothy

  Barence writes "Mozilla has announced plans to redraft the open-source license underpinning projects such as Firefox. The Mozilla Public License 1.1 has been used to distribute numerous projects including Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenSolaris and Flex for over a decade. In the first phase of this process, Mozilla will release an alpha draft based on feedback already received. This will be followed by 'commentary, discussion, and further drafting, followed by beta and release candidate drafts.' Mozilla intends to 'seriously investigate' whether it can make the MPL compatible with the Apache license, in an effort to 'help projects using the MPL become more flexible about using Apache-licensed code.'"

  

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  Pi Day and an Interview With a Pi Researcher

  Posted: March 14th, 2010, 6:00am MDT by timothy

  JoshuaInNippon writes "In honor of Pi Day, March 14 (or 3.14 for those who may need a hint), readers may be interested in reading an interview with Professor Daisuke Takahashi, the Japanese researcher who found 2.5 trillion digits of Pi back in August, before being apparently being edged out in December by a French computer programmer looking to prove his efficient coding abilities. Professor Takahashi's interview gives some unique insight into one man who truly marvels at the number that has driven people to ever greater lengths to find more digits for centuries." Plant Kingdom adds "There have been a number of proposals for alternatives to March 14 (see the Wikipedia page for Pi Day). Here's mine: when the Earth has gone through 1/pi-th of its orbit, as measured from Winter Solstice to Winter Solstice. I've put together a web site to make the case."

  

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  A Skeptical Comparison of HTML5 Video Playback To Flash

  Posted: March 14th, 2010, 3:03am MDT by timothy

  gollum123 writes "Think we'd all be better off if HTML5 could somehow instantly replace Flash overnight? Not necessarily, according to a set of comparisons from Jan Ozer of the Streaming Learning Center website, which found that while HTML5 did come out ahead in many respects, it wasn't exactly a clear winner. They did find that HTML5 clearly performed better than Flash 10 or 10.1 in Safari on a Mac, although the differences were less clear cut in Google Chrome or Firefox. On the other hand, Flash more than held its own on Windows, and Flash Player 10.1 was actually 58% more efficient than HTML5 in Google Chrome on the Windows system tested. As you may have deduced, one of the big factors accounting for that discrepancy is that Flash is able to take advantage of GPU hardware acceleration in Windows, while Adobe is effectively cut out of the loop on Mac." gollum123 also links to additional tests indicating that Flash "does not perform consistently worse on Mac than on Windows."

  

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  Long-Running Underwater Robot Lost At Sea

  Posted: March 13th, 2010, 10:55pm MST by timothy

  this_boat_is_real writes "Somewhere off the coast of Chile a pioneering underwater robot named Abe lies in a watery grave today. The Autonomous Benthic Explorer was one of the first truly independent research submersibles, being both unmanned and un-tethered to its launching ship. While on its 222nd research dive on Friday all contact with the craft was lost, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has announced."

  

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  Pharma Marketing Faces a Character-Count Conundrum

  Posted: March 13th, 2010, 7:47pm MST by timothy

  this_boat_is_real writes "There's growing concern over how pharmaceutical companies use social media and the Internet to market their products. Last November, the US Food and Drug Administration held a hearing on the topic, and many were worried over how marketing mediums such as Twitter — which has a 140-character limit on text — can sufficiently disclose drug risks." Here's the FDA's announcement about last year's hearings, which includes links to an archive of presentations as well as a video record of the meeting.

  

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  OpenBSD 4.7 Preorders Are Up

  Posted: March 13th, 2010, 6:07pm MST by timothy

  badger.foo writes "The OpenBSD 4.7 pre-orders are up. That means the release is done, sent off to CD production, and snapshots will turn -current again. Order now and you more likely than not will have your CD set, T-shirt or other cool stuff before the official release date. You get the chance to support the most important free software project on the planet, and get your hands on some cool playables and wearables early. The release page is still being filled in, but the changelog has detailed information about the goodies in this release."

  

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  Programming the Commodore 64: the Definitive Guide

  Posted: March 13th, 2010, 4:42pm MST by timothy

  Mirk writes "Back in 1985 it was possible to understand the whole computer, from the hardware up through device drivers and the kernel through to the high-level language that came burned into the ROMs (even if it was only Microsoft BASIC). The Reinvigorated Programmer revisits R. C. West's classic and exhaustive book Programming the Commodore 64 and laments the decline of that sort of comprehensive Deep Knowing."

  

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  Former Astronauts Call Obama NASA Plans "Catastrophic"

  Posted: March 13th, 2010, 3:35pm MST by timothy

  krou writes "Talking to the BBC at a private function held at the Royal Society in London, former astronauts Jim Lovell and Eugene Cernan both spoke out about Obama's decision to postpone further moon missions. Lovell claimed that 'it will have catastrophic consequences in our ability to explore space and the spin-offs we get from space technology,' while Cernan noted he was 'disappointed' to have been the last person to land on the moon. Said Cernan: 'I think America has a responsibility to maintain its leadership in technology and its moral leadership ... to seek knowledge. Curiosity's the essence of human existence.' Neil Armstrong, who was also at the event, avoided commenting on the subject."

  

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  Former Astronauts Call Obama NASA Plans "Catastrophic"

  Posted: March 13th, 2010, 3:35pm MST by timothy

  krou writes "Talking to the BBC at a private function held at the Royal Society in London, former astronauts Jim Lovell and Eugene Cernan both spoke out about Obama's decision to postpone further moon missions. Lovell claimed that 'it will have catastrophic consequences in our ability to explore space and the spin-offs we get from space technology,' while Cernan noted he was 'disappointed' to have been the last person to land on the moon. Said Cernan: 'I think America has a responsibility to maintain its leadership in technology and its moral leadership ... to seek knowledge. Curiosity's the essence of human existence.' Neil Armstrong, who was also at the event, avoided commenting on the subject."

  

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  GPS Log Analysis Uncovers Millions In NYC Taxi Overcharges

  Posted: March 13th, 2010, 2:33pm MST by timothy

  Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that New York City's Taxi and Limousine Commission is using GPS data collected in every cab to review millions of trips in New York City over the past 26 months and has discovered a huge number in which out-of-city rates, twice the rate charged for rides in the five boroughs, were improperly charged. The drivers' scheme, the commission says, involved 1.8 million rides and cost passengers an average of $4 to $5 extra per trip when drivers flipped switches on their meters that kicked in the higher rates, costing New York City riders a total of $8.3 million. Cab drivers are supposed to charge the higher rate only when they cross the border between New York City and Nassau or Westchester. 'We have not seen anything quite this pervasive,' said Matthew W. Daus, the taxi and limousine commissioner. 'It's very disturbing.' The taxi industry vigorously challenged the city's findings, saying it was unimaginable that such a pervasive problem could be the result of deliberate fraud. The commission says that 75% out of the city's 48,000 drivers had applied the higher rate at least once. Officials hope to roll out a short-term fix in two or three weeks in which an alert will appear on the backseat monitor when a cabbie activates the out-of-town rate."

  

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  Brinksmanship Continues In Google-China Row Over Censorship

  Posted: March 13th, 2010, 1:28pm MST by timothy

  According to The Financial Times, "Google has drawn up detailed plans for the closure of its Chinese search engine and is now '99.9 per cent' certain to go ahead [with the closure] as talks over censorship with the Chinese authorities have reached an apparent impasse, according to a person familiar with the company’s thinking. In a hardening of positions on both sides, the Chinese government also on Friday threw down a direct public challenge to the US search company, with a warning that it was not prepared to compromise on internet censorship to stop Google leaving." "99.9 per cent" or not, both sides say they'd actually like Google to remain in China, but neither is willing to bend publicly on the question of censorship. If Google closes google.cn, as now seems likely, it could still maintain its R&D office in Beijing and its sales force, who sell ads on google.com targeted into China.

  

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  Why Are Digital Hearing Aids So Expensive?

  Posted: March 13th, 2010, 12:30pm MST by timothy

  sglines writes "Over the last couple of years I've been slowly getting deaf. Too much loud rock and roll I suppose. After flubbing a couple of job interviews because I couldn't understand my inquisitors, I had a hearing test which confirmed what I already knew: I'm deaf. So I tried on a set of behind-the-ear hearing aids. Wow, my keyboard makes clacks as I type and my wife doesn't mumble to herself. Then I asked how much: $3,700 for the pair. Hey, I'm unemployed. The cheapest digital hearing aids they had were $1,200 each. If you look at the specs they are not very impressive. A digital hearing aid has a low-power A-to-D converter. Output consists of D-to-A conversion with volume passing through an equalizer that inversely matches your hearing loss. Most hearing loss, mine included, is frequency dependent, so an equalizer does wonders. The 'cheap' hearing aids had only four channels while the high-end one had twelve. My 1970 amplifier had more than that. I suppose they have some kind of noise reduction circuitry, too, but that's pretty much it. So my question is this: when I can get a very good netbook computer for under $400 why do I need to pay $1,200 per ear for a hearing aid? Alternatives would be welcome."

  

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  Key Web App Standard Approaches Consensus

  Posted: March 13th, 2010, 11:26am MST by Soulskill

  suraj.sun tips a report up at CNet which begins: "Browser makers, grappling with outmoded technology and a vision to rebuild the Web as a foundation for applications, have begun converging on a seemingly basic but very important element of cloud computing. That ability is called local storage, and the new mechanism is called Indexed DB. Indexed DB, proposed by Oracle and initially called WebSimpleDB, is largely just a prototype at this stage, not something Web programmers can use yet. But already it's won endorsements from Microsoft, Mozilla, and Google, and together, Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome account for more than 90 percent of the usage on the Net today. 'Indexed DB is interesting to both Firefox and Microsoft, so if we get to the point where we prototype it and want to ship it, it will have very wide availability,' said Chris Blizzard, director of evangelism for Mozilla. ... Microsoft publicly endorsed Indexed DB on its IE blog: 'Together with Mozilla, we're excited about a new design for local storage called Indexed DB. We think this is a great solution for the Web,' said program manager Adrian Bateman."

  

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  Toyota Acceleration and Embedded System Bugs

  Posted: March 13th, 2010, 10:24am MST by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "David Cummings, a programmer who worked on the Mars Pathfinder project, has written an interesting editorial in the L.A. Times encouraging Toyota to drop claims of software infallibility in their recent acceleration problems. He argues that embedded systems developers must program more defensively, and that companies should stop relying on software for safety. Quoting: 'If Toyota has indeed tested its software as thoroughly as it says without finding any bugs, my response is simple: Keep trying. Find new ways to instrument the software, and come up with more creative tests. The odds are that there are still bugs in the code, which may or may not be related to unintended acceleration. Until these bugs are identified, how can you be certain they are not related to sudden acceleration?'"

  

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  AMARSi Project Aims To Have Robots Learn Jobs From Co-workers

  Posted: March 13th, 2010, 9:20am MST by Soulskill

  Lanxon writes "Robots of the future will be capable of learning more complex behaviors than ever before if a new, pan-European research project succeeds in its goal of developing the world's first architecture for advanced robotic motor skills, reports Wired. If successful, the four-year AMARSi (Adaptive Modular Architecture for Rich Motor Skills) project could see a manufacturing world filled with autonomous, intelligent humanoid worker bots that can learn new skills by interacting with their co-workers."

  

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  Fastest (and Most Compact) Stellar Spinner Confirmed

  Posted: March 13th, 2010, 8:45am MST by Soulskill

  gregg writes "HM Cancri has been confirmed as a binary system of two white dwarfs orbiting each other so closely that they complete one orbit every 5.4 minutes; they are separated by a mere 8 Earth diameters. 'These are the burnt-out cinders of stars such as our Sun, and contain a highly condensed form of helium, carbon and oxygen. The two white dwarfs in HM Cancri are so close together that mass is flowing from one star to the other. HM Cancri was first noticed as an X-ray source in 1999, showing a 5.4 minutes periodicity, but for a long time it has remained unclear whether this period also indicated the actual orbital period of the system. It was so short that astronomers were reluctant to accept the possibility without solid proof. '"

  

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  Final Decision Deferred On ".xxx" Domains

  Posted: March 13th, 2010, 8:19am MST by Soulskill

  Hugh Pickens writes "The Associated Press reports that the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has deferred a decision until June on whether to create a '.xxx' Internet suffix as an online red-light district, beginning a 70-day process of consultations on a domain that could help parents block access to adult sites. ICM Registry LLC first proposed the '.xxx' domain in 2000, and ICANN has rejected it three times already since then, but an outside panel last month questioned the board's latest rejection in 2007, prompting the board to reopen the bid. Backers of '.xxx' have billed the proposal as a way for the adult-entertainment industry to clean up its act, though some adult sites worry that governments would wind up mandating the use of '.xxx' and that sites with the '.xxx' suffix could easily be blocked by government web filters in the future. 'I am very concerned and fearful of censoring adult material that should be made available for adults. It scares the hell out of me,' says Malcolm Day, head of AdultShop.com, adding that if adult websites weren't allowed to have '.com' domains and could only register under the '.xxx' address, then 'many governments (across the world) would try to block them.'"

  

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  SCO Asked O'Gara To Smear Groklaw

  Posted: March 13th, 2010, 7:15am MST by Soulskill

  I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "PJ of Groklaw has found some really interesting documents coming out of the never-ending SCO trial. Specifically, in SCO v. Novell, SCO doesn't want the jury to find out about the email Blake Stowell (then a PR guy for SCO) sent to Maureen O'Gara that asked her to 'send a jab PJ's way.' For those who don't remember that far back in the SCO saga, the 'jab' was when O'Gara wrote an inaccurate, rambling and irrelevant 'exposé' on PJ which got O'Gara fired for violating journalistic ethics after angry readers complained to the publisher—an act which caused Ms. O'Gara to tell SCO, 'I want war pay.' For those wondering how they can keep going after that final judgment against SCO over a year ago, it's hard to do the saga justice without glossing over everything, but the short version is that SCO ran to bankruptcy after they were mostly dead, but before becoming completely dead. That automatically stopped all the cases against SCO due to standard bankruptcy court rules, then SCO effectively re-litigated a bunch of issues via bankruptcy court rules. Currently, they're accusing Novell of 'slander of title' over copyrights that two different courts have ruled SCO does not own, and we're waiting to see if a jury will reach the same conclusion. They're also trying to use the company's lawsuits as assets and to sell them to various SCO insiders so that the legal wranglings can continue even if nothing is left of SCO. From the very start, SCO has always been the type to fight dirty."

  

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  SCO Asked O'Gara To Smear Groklaw

  Posted: March 13th, 2010, 7:15am MST by Soulskill

  I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "PJ of Groklaw has found some really interesting documents coming out of the never-ending SCO trial. Specifically, in SCO v. Novell, SCO doesn't want the jury to find out about the email Blake Stowell (then a PR guy for SCO) sent to Maureen O'Gara that asked her to 'send a jab PJ's way.' For those who don't remember that far back in the SCO saga, the 'jab' was when O'Gara wrote an inaccurate, rambling and irrelevant 'exposé' on PJ which got O'Gara fired for violating journalistic ethics after angry readers complained to the publisher — an act which caused Ms. O'Gara to tell SCO, 'I want war pay.' For those wondering how they can keep going after that final judgment against SCO over a year ago, it's hard to do the saga justice without glossing over everything, but the short version is that SCO ran to bankruptcy after they were mostly dead, but before becoming completely dead. That automatically stopped all the cases against SCO due to standard bankruptcy court rules, then SCO effectively re-litigated a bunch of issues via bankruptcy court rules. Currently, they're accusing Novell of 'slander of title' over copyrights that two different courts have ruled SCO does not own, and we're waiting to see if a jury will reach the same conclusion. They're also trying to use the company's lawsuits as assets and to sell them to various SCO insiders so that the legal wranglings can continue even if nothing is left of SCO. From the very start, SCO has always been the type to fight dirty."

  

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  PA Laptop Spying Inspires FSF Crowdsourcing Effort

  Posted: March 13th, 2010, 6:37am MST by timothy

  holmesfsf writes "Creeped out by the Lower Merion School District's remote monitoring of students? Check out the Free Software Foundation's response to the laptop spying scandal and help build a wiki listing of school districts that provide students with laptops, so that the FSF can campaign against mandatory, proprietary laptops."

  

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  The Dark Side of the Web

  Posted: March 13th, 2010, 6:13am MST by timothy

  Barence writes "Beneath the web pages indexed by Google lies an online world that few know exists. It's a realm of huge, untapped reserves of valuable information containing sprawling databases, hidden websites and murky forums. It's a world where academics and researchers might find the data required to solve some of mankind's biggest problems, but also where criminal syndicates operate, and terrorist handbooks and child pornography are freely distributed. Interested? You're not alone. The deep web and its 'darknets' are a new battleground for those who want to uphold the right to privacy online, and those who feel that rights need to be sacrificed for the safety of society. The deep web is also the new frontier for those who want to rival Google in the field of search." The melodrama is tempered, though: "The deep web isn’t half as strange or sinister as it sounds. In computer-science speak, it refers to those portions of the web that, for whatever reason, have been invisible to conventional search engines such as Google."

  

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  Permanent Undersea Homes Soon; Temporary Ones Now

  Posted: March 13th, 2010, 5:20am MST by timothy

  MMBK writes "Dennis Chamberland is one of the world's preeminent aquanauts. He's worked with NASA to develop living habitats and underwater plant growth labs, among other cool things. His next goal is establishing the world's first permanent underwater colony. This video gets to the heart of his project, literally and figuratively, as most is shot in his underwater habitat, Atlantica, off the coast of Key Largo, FL. The coolest part might be the moon pool, the room you swim into underwater."

  

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  UK Intel Agency's Missing Laptops Might Contain Sensitive Data

  Posted: March 13th, 2010, 4:49am MST by timothy

  superapecommando writes "GCHQ lost 35 laptops in one year, potentially containing highly sensitive data. The UK's electronic spy centre was today lambasted by MPs for having a 'cavalier' attitude to data security. The centre is responsible for tracking the electronic communications of terrorists. In a new report, the Commons Intelligence and Security Committee expressed concern that GCHQ appeared to be entirely unaware whether or not the computers, lost in 2008, contained top secret information on people posing an imminent security threat to the country."

  

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  Malware Authors Learn Market Segmentation From the Best

  Posted: March 13th, 2010, 1:52am MST by timothy

  Earthquake Retrofit writes "The Register has a rather funny story about the Zeus botnet: 'The latest version of the Zeus do-it-yourself crimeware kit goes to great lengths to thwart would-be pirates by introducing a hardware-based product activation scheme similar to what's found in Microsoft Windows. ... They've also pushed out multiple flavors of the package that vary in price depending on the capabilities it offers. Just as Windows users can choose between the lower-priced Windows 7 Starter or the more costly Windows 7 Business, bot masters have multiple options for Zeus.'"

  

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  Licensing an Abandonware Game?

  Posted: March 13th, 2010, 12:37am MST by Soulskill

  WolverineOfLove writes "I'm recreating a 1980s abandonware game with copyrights that have been seemingly unused for the past 18 years. The situation is detailed further in a Slashdot journal entry I just wrote, but in short: Is it worth dealing with all the copyrights and paying money if I want to recreate an abandonware title as an open source game? I know there are legal implications to certain decisions I might make, but there is a real possibility that this game's copyright holder will do nothing with the rights, and I'd much prefer preserving it for others than letting it fade away."

  

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  Apple Loses Aussie Trademark Complaint Over "i" Name

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 10:50pm MST by timothy

  CuteSteveJobs writes "Apple has been dealt a severe blow having been told that it no longer has a monopoly on the letter 'i' for product naming. IP Australia, the government body that oversees trademark applications, rejected Apple's complaint against a company selling 'DOPi' laptop bags. Last year Australian computer company Macpro Computers claimed that after 26 years of flying its own Macpro brand that Apple was 'trying to burn us out' with legal fees. This was after Apple released its own Macpro line 3½ years ago. Apple lost that complaint, but is appealing. Last year Apple went after supermarket Woolworths complaining their new logo which featured a 'W' fashioned into the shape of an apple. (Woolworths sells real apples.)"

  

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  JPL Background Check Case Reaches Supreme Court

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 9:43pm MST by timothy

  Dthief writes "A long-running legal battle between the United States government and a group of 29 scientists and engineers of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, has now reached the US Supreme Court." At issue: mandatory background checks for scientists and engineers working at JPL, which they allege includes snooping into their sexual orientation, as well as their mental and physical health.

  

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  Digg Says Yes To NoSQL Cassandra DB, Bye To MySQL

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 7:47pm MST by timothy

  donadony writes "After twitter, now it's Digg who's decided to replace MySQL and most of their infrastructure components and move away from LAMP to another architecture called NoSQL that is based in Cassandra, an open source project that develops a highly scalable second-generation distributed database. Cassandra was open sourced by Facebook in 2008 and is licensed under the Apache License. The reason for this move, as explained by Digg, is the increasing difficulty of building a high-performance, write-intensive application on a data set that is growing quickly, with no end in sight. This growth has forced them into horizontal and vertical partitioning strategies that have eliminated most of the value of a relational database, while still incurring all the overhead."

  

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  Hunting Disease Origins By Whole-Genome Sequencing

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 5:04pm MST by timothy

  ChocSnorfler writes "James Lupski, a physician-scientist who suffers from a neurological disorder called Charcot-Marie-Tooth, has been searching for the genetic cause of his disease for more than 25 years. Late last year, he finally found it — by sequencing his entire genome. While a number of human genome sequences have been published to date, Lupski's research is the first to show how whole-genome sequencing can be used to identify the genetic cause of an individual's disease."

  

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  Nearby Star Forecast To Skirt Solar System

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 4:36pm MST by Soulskill

  PipianJ writes "A recent preprint posted on arXiv by Vadim Bobylev presents some startling new numbers about a future close pass of one of our stellar neighbors. Based on studies of the Hipparcos catalog, Bobylev suggests that the nearby orange dwarf Gliese 710 has an 86% chance of skirting the outer bounds of the Solar System and the hypothesized Oort Cloud in the next 1.5 million years. As the Oort Cloud is thought to be the source of many long-period comets, the gravitational effects of Gliese's passing could send a shower of comets into the inner Solar System, threatening Earth. This news about Gliese 710 isn't exactly new, but it's one of the first times the probability of this near-miss has been quantified."

  

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  Texas Approves Conservative Curriculum

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 4:17pm MST by Soulskill

  Macharius writes "Today, the Texas Board of Education approved 11-4 a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the role of Christianity in American history and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light. The article goes on to mention that Texas's textbook approvals carry less influence than they used to due to digital localization technology, but is that even measurable given how many millions of these textbooks will still be used across the country?"

  

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  Court Rules Against Vaccine-Autism Claims Again

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 3:36pm MST by Soulskill

  barnyjr writes "According to a story from Reuters, 'Vaccines that contain a mercury-based preservative called thimerosal cannot cause autism on their own, a special US court ruled on Friday, dealing one more blow to parents seeking to blame vaccines for their children's illness. The special US Court of Federal Claims ruled that vaccines could not have caused the autism of an Oregon boy, William Mead, ending his family's quest for reimbursement. ... While the state court determined the autism was vaccine-related, [Special Master George] Hastings said overwhelming medical evidence showed otherwise. The theory presented by the Meads and experts who testified on their behalf "was biologically implausible and scientifically unsupported," Hasting wrote.'"

  

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  Scientists Need Volunteers To Look At the Sun

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 2:55pm MST by Soulskill

  Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that Royal Observatory's 'Solar Stormwatch' needs volunteers to help scientists spot Sun storms — known as coronal mass ejections — before they cause damage on Earth. 'When you look up at the Sun obviously it's too bright to look at properly,' says Dr. Marek Kukula of the Royal Observatory, but 'with special instruments and telescopes you can see there's all sorts of stuff going on.' NASA already monitors the Sun using two 'STEREO' spacecraft that produce 3D images of earth's nearest star, which can show the trajectory of these explosions. However, the sheer amount of data means NASA's scientists are unable to analyze the data as closely as they need — which is where the world's Internet population comes in. After a brief tutorial, users get access to the actual 3-D images taken by the STEREO spacecraft. If a user believes they have spotted the beginnings of a solar storm, they can bring it to the attention of scientists. 'Every little bit counts,' says Kukula. 'I've spoken to the scientists involved and they all agree that even if you log-on and just do it for a few hours, get bored and never touch it again it's all really useful — and helps them to do their work.'"

  

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  Here Come the Linux iPad Clones

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 2:13pm MST by Soulskill

  CWmike writes "You can now pre-order an Apple iPad; but do you really want to, asks Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols. 'I mean, I get why you'd want an iPad. I'd like one too,' he writes. 'But,' he says, 'when I consider that there are soon going to be literally dozens of cheaper, Linux-powered iPad devices on the market, I find it a lot easier to resist putting $499 on my credit card. On top of that, Apple will be including DRM on some eBooks and other iPad content. I really, really hate DRM. All that said, I agree the iPad is really cool. I predict with absolute faith that the iPad and its clones are going to kill off single purpose devices like dedicated eReaders such as Amazon's Kindle and GPS devices within the next three years. How can it not work out this way? For the same price as a high-end dedicated device you can get a tablet that will do everything they can do and far more. But, and this is the important bit, you don't have to buy an Apple iPad to get all of the iPad's goodies. ARM, a mobile microprocessor power, is predicting that we'll see no less than 50 ARM-processor-powered iPad clones by year's end. And, what will they be running? These ARM-powered entertainment tablets will all be running Linux.'"

  

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  DR Congo Ring May Be Giant Impact Crater

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 1:48pm MST by Soulskill

  Phrogman writes "The BBC is reporting that deforestation has 'revealed what could be a giant impact crater in Central Africa, scientists say. The 36-46km-wide feature, identified in DR Congo, may be one of the largest such structures discovered in the last decade.' If you search Google Maps for 'Omeonga Democratic Republic of the Congo,' you will be right in the middle of the suspected crater."

  

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  NY To Replace IT Vendors With State Workers

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 1:29pm MST by Soulskill

  dcblogs writes "New York state plans to replace as many as 500 IT contract workers with a new type of temporary state worker. The state estimates it can save $25,000 annually for each contracting position that is in-sourced. This is the result of a new law creating 'term appointments,' which strip away some hiring and firing rules that apply to permanent state workers. These term appointment workers are employed 'at will.' Term appointments can be up to five years and workers get state benefits. Proponents of this change said a state IT worker might earn an average of $55 an hour, including benefits, while the state pays its contractors an average of $128 an hour for workers in similar jobs."

  

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  Netflix Prize Sequel Cancelled Over Privacy Concerns

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 12:47pm MST by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "Netflix just announced that they have cancelled the sequel to the Netflix Prize, which was promised last year. Netflix made the choice after they were sued over privacy concerns. The prize involves releasing large amounts of data about users' movie preferences, which raised concerns from the Federal Trade Commission and a lawsuit from KamberLaw LLC. Netflix's Neil Hunt said, 'We have reached an understanding with the FTC and have settled the lawsuit with plaintiffs. The resolution to both matters involves certain parameters for how we use Netflix data in any future research programs.'"

  

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  China Warns Google To Obey Or Leave

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 12:04pm MST by Soulskill

  suraj.sun writes with this snippet from an Associated Press report: "China's top Internet regulator insisted Friday that Google must obey its laws or 'pay the consequences,' giving no sign of a possible compromise in their dispute over censorship and hacking. 'If you want to do something that disobeys Chinese law and regulations, you are unfriendly, you are irresponsible and you will have to pay the consequences,' Li Yizhong, the minister of Industry and Information Technology, said on the sidelines of China's annual legislature. ... 'Whether they leave or not is up to them,' Li said. 'But if they leave, China's Internet market is still going to develop.' ... Li insisted the government needs to censor Internet content to protect the rights of the country and its people. 'If there is information that harms stability or the people, of course we will have to block it,' he said."

  

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  Security Industry Faces Attacks It Can't Stop

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 11:23am MST by kdawson

  itwbennett writes "The takedown of the Mariposa botnet and so-called advanced persistent threat attacks, such as the one that compromised Google systems in early December, were hot topics at the RSA conference last week. What both Mariposa and the Google attacks illustrate, and what went largely unsaid at RSA, was that the security industry has failed to protect paying customers from some of today's most pernicious threats, writes Robert McMillan. Traditional security products are simply not much help, said Alex Stamos, a partner with Isec Partners, one of the companies investigating the APT attacks. 'All of the victims we've worked with had perfectly installed antivirus,' he said. 'They all had intrusion detection systems and several had Web proxies scan content.'"

  

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  University of Wyoming Studies Video Games

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 10:43am MST by kdawson

  krou writes "The Christian Science Monitor has an interesting story about how the University of Wyoming's English Department is helping fund a collective called the Learning Games Initiative to study video games. Jason Thompson, an assistant professor at UW who is part of the group, explains that 'it's a group of people [who] do research on games, do development on games, and keep an archive of games printed matter such as manuals, ... systems, all of it. We really look at games as cultural artifacts; things that reveal theology, things that reveal power. Things that should be studied in the academy.' The English Department has been very open-minded with the project, because they understand that gaming can educate people, and that 'we can expand our notion of what text and study is; the idea that it might be fun doesn't necessarily preclude its study.' Thompson believes that it's important for academia to study gaming, because games could be used in the future as a type of textbook: 'if games can teach, then as teachers shouldn't we understand what kind of teaching's going on?'"

  

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  IBM Stops Disclosing US Headcount Data

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 9:58am MST by kdawson

  theodp writes "ComputerWorld reports that IBM has stopped providing breakouts on US employees, closing a door to data that provided insights into the bellwether company's employment shift. In its latest Annual Report, Big Blue only provides its global headcount, and an IBM spokesman confirmed that disclosure of US headcount is a thing of the past. The Rochester Institute of Technology's Ron Hira called the US workforce data critical for policymakers trying to understand the dynamics of offshoring. 'By hiding its offshoring, IBM is doing a disservice to America — through omission the company is providing misleading labor market signals and information to policy makers,' Hira said. Ironically, CEO Sam Palmisano's Letter to Shareholders, which accompanied the Annual Report, touts how IBM's Analytics and 'Smarter Planet' efforts are empowering US government decision-makers. Nondisclosure domestically and abroad seems to be the new rule of thumb for Big Tech, sparking calls for government intervention." IBM laid off about 10,000 US workers last year, and 2,900 so far this year, according to the Alliance@IBM, a labor union.

  

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  School Putting Autistic Children in Fenced Enclosure

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 9:39am MST by samzenpus

  In an attempt to deal with autistic children who "have no sense of boundaries and do not respond to staff asking them to stop," a Sydney primary school has created pens which hold the disabled children during play time. As you might expect, parents have expressed outrage that their kids are forced to stand inside a fenced enclosure that has one tree, a bench and a dirt floor. The Department of Education said in a statement: "The school is located on a busy road. Without this area, the students may leave the school grounds and could potentially be injured. Some of these children have no sense of boundaries and do not respond to staff asking them to stop. Once the school is satisfied a student will listen to directions from staff members and is also aware of playground boundaries, the child can use the playground."

  

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  MIT Scientists Make a Polyethylene Heatsink

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 9:10am MST by kdawson

  arcticstoat calls our attention to MIT research that has produced a version of polyethylene that can conduct heat away from computer chips. Polyethylene is the most widely used plastic. It's not clear how practical this research is for industrial-scale use, involving as it does an atomic-force microscope. The work is detailed in a paper published in Nature Nanotechnology this month. "The new process causes the polymer to conduct heat very efficiently in just one direction, unlike metals, which conduct equally well in all directions. ... The key to the transformation was getting all the polymer molecules to line up the same way, rather than forming a chaotic tangled mass, as they normally do. The team did that by slowly drawing a polyethylene fiber out of a solution, using the finely controllable cantilever of an atomic-force microscope, which they also used to measure the properties of the resulting fiber. This fiber was about 300 times more thermally conductive than normal polyethylene along the direction of the individual fibers, says the team’s leader..."

  

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  On Social Networks, You Are Who You Know

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 8:28am MST by kdawson

  santosh maharshi writes "On social networks like Facebook, even if you have kept your profile very private, people can just look at your friends list and infer lots of vital information about you. Most of the social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn allow people to see your picture and your friends list as part of the open access for visitors (the article says that only 5% of Facebook users have bothered to hide their friends list). In a study titled You Are Who You Know: Inferring User Profiles in Online Social Networks (PDF), conducted by Alan Mislove of Northeastern University and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, an algorithm was tested that can accurately infer the personal attributes of Facebook users simply by looking at their friend lists. 'At Rice [University], the algorithm accurately predicted the correct dormitory, graduation year, and area of study for the many of the students. In fact, among these undergraduates, researchers found that “with as little as 20 percent of the users providing attributes we can often infer the attributes for the remaining users with over 80 percent accuracy."'"

  

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  Hollow Spy Coins

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 7:40am MST by kdawson

  Bruce Schneier's blog links to a few sources for hollow spy coins, one being BoingBoing's Bazaar — where a nickel that can hold a microSD card costs $27. Another is Slashdot's sister company ThinkGeek, where you can get hollow quarters and half-dollars in the low 20s. As if corporate and government security geeks didn't have enough to worry about.

  

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  FCC Asks You To Test Your Broadband Speeds

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 6:51am MST by kdawson

  AnotherUsername writes "The Federal Communications Commission is asking the nation's broadband and smartphone users to use its broadband testing tools to help the feds and consumers know what speeds are actually available, not just promised by the nation's telecoms. At http://www.broadband.gov/, users enter their address and test their broadband download speed, upload speed, latency, and jitter using one of two tests (users can choose to test with the other after one test is complete). The FCC is requiring the street address, as it 'may use this data to analyze broadband quality and availability on a geographic basis' (they promise not to release location data except in the aggregate). The agency is also asking those who live in a broadband 'dead zone' to fill out a report online, call, fax, email, or even send a letter. The announcement comes just six days before the FCC presents the first ever national broadband plan to Congress. Java is necessary to run the test." Lauren Weinstein points out some of the limitations in the FCC's testing methodology.

  

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  ACM Awards 2009 Turing Prize To Alto Creator Charles Thacker

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 6:07am MST by timothy

  scumm writes "This year's Turing Prize has been awarded to Charles Thacker, whom they describe as (among other things) the 'creator of the first modern personal computer.' From the ACM's announcement: 'ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery today named Charles P. Thacker the winner of the 2009 ACM A.M. Turing Award for his pioneering design and realization of the Alto, the first modern personal computer, and the prototype for networked personal computers. Thacker's design, which he built while at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center), reflected a new vision of a self-sufficient, networked computer on every desk, equipped with innovations that are standard in today's models. Thacker was also cited for his contributions to the Ethernet local area network, which enables multiple computers to communicate and share resources, as well as the first multiprocessor workstation, and the prototype for today's most used tablet PC, with its capabilities for direct user interaction.' For further reading, the Wall Street Journal has an article providing more background about Mr. Thacker and the Turing Prize. In the spirit of full disclosure, the submitter feels compelled to point out that this Mr. Thacker is his uncle, and that he thinks this is really cool."

  

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  Sony Begins Selling HD Movies On Its PSN

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 5:26am MST by Soulskill

  itwbennett writes "Sony on Tuesday 'rolled out the ability to buy HD movies from the PlayStation Network,' writes blogger Peter Smith. Sony claims they're the first service to offer HD titles to own from all six major movie studios. Smith runs the numbers on 'standard' pricing for titles ($19.99 for new releases; $17.99 for older movies), file sizes (ranging from 4 GB for Zombieland to 7.5 GB for 2012), and resolution (720P as far as he can tell)."

  

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  UK Gov't Wants Facebook To Feature Child Safety Button

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 4:40am MST by timothy

  judgecorp writes "Harriet Harman, the deputy leader of the Labour Party, has said that UK government ministers are 'taking action' to get Facebook to add a British child protection button (called CEOP) to its site. The move comes after the UK's Daily Mail withdrew allegations that teenagers on Facebook are continually pestered — though Facebook is still considering suing the paper. The campaign apparently ignores Facebook's assertion that it already has better child protection in place and the CEOP button would be limited to the UK."

  

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  China To Tap Combustible Ice As New Energy Source

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 3:00am MST by timothy

  lilbridge writes "Huge reserves of "combustible ice" — frozen methane and water — have been discovered in the tundra of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in China. Estimates show that there is enough combustible ice to provide 90 years worth of energy for China. Burning the combustible ice may be a far better alternative than letting it just melt, releasing tons of methane into the air."

  

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  A Sad Day For the New Zealand Internet

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 1:36am MST by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes "Another one bites the dust, as New Zealand's Internet filter stealthily goes live with two smaller ISPs, and three of the largest already rumoured to have signed up to do the same. However, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is apparently 'committed to helping people to circumvent government internet filtering,' so perhaps the USA will launch an invasion to free the poor downtrodden Kiwis from their own evil government?" Clever of one of the acquiescing ISPs to have named itself "Watchdog."

  

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  Best Pre-Paid Data Plan For a Visit To Germany?

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 12:01am MST by timothy

  code prole writes "With two upcoming trips to Germany, and no readily available Internet (Wi-Fi or otherwise) in the location where we'll be staying, I'm looking for a no-contract USB stick and pre-paid data plan. Vodafone has a huge selection of USB sticks but has proven to be unresponsive to questions about data plans. And the US-based T-Mobile Help Center was clueless about getting the device in Europe and using it there. Hopefully the Slashdot community has some suggestions. Any duds to avoid?"

  

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  Zeus Botnet Down But Not Out

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 10:20pm MST by timothy

  harryjohnston writes "The Register points out that the takedown of a significant number of Zeus command-and-control servers, which we discussed earlier, was a short-lived victory, as about one-third of the affected servers were back on the net in less than 48 hours." Adds itwbennet: "Just hours after network connectivity to Troyak was severed the ISP peered with a new upstream Internet service provider named Ya. The next step will be to 'de-peer' Troyak from its new service provider, either an ISP named Nassist or its upstream provider, Hurricane Electric, said a researcher familiar with the matter. 'We have taken some of their territory, they are trying to out flank us,' the researcher said via IM. 'We are going to win this one — we have 'em boxed in.'"

  

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  MetaLab Accuses Mozilla of Ripping Off UI Elements In Mockups

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 7:08pm MST by timothy

  CWmike writes "Canadian interface design firm MetaLab has accused Mozilla of stealing user interface elements for a development tool in the browser maker's Jetpack project, which aims to simplify add-on making. MetaLab leveled the charges on Tuesday when the 11-person firm's founder, Andrew Wilkinson, blogged about the similarities between his company's designs and those posted by Mozilla for FlightDeck, a Jetpack editor. 'What they did was pretty ridiculous,' Wilkinson said on Thursday. 'There's a difference between inspiration versus ripping something off,' he said. 'The measurements of the graphic elements [Mozilla took from us] were the exact same, the very same pixels. When someone takes your images from the server hosting them, that's crossing the line.' Mozilla apologized to MetaLab on Wednesday, saying in a blog post, 'While the design direction being implemented does not utilize these design elements, we inadvertently included the early mockups in our blog post and video announcing the next phase of development for the Jetpack SDK ... We sincerely apologize to MetaLab for incorporating design elements from their web site in our early mockups and for posting them publicly without proper attribution.'" Alexander Limi of the Firefox User Experience Team points out that MetaLab has accepted the apology, too — worth bearing in mind.

  

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  William Shatner Takes On Social Networking

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 4:22pm MST by timothy

  nut writes "Everybody's favourite actor, author and starship captain is bringing some new ideas to the world of social networking. Myouterspace.com is, in the Captain's own words, '...a Sci Fi Social Network for those with a passion for the arts.' Facebook and Myspace should be worried. Sign up now. Go on, you know you want to."

  

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  Researchers Beam 230Mb/sec Wireless Internet WIth LEDs

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 3:38pm MST by timothy

  MikeChino writes "A group of scientists from Germany's Fraunhofer Institute have devised a way to encode a visible-frequency wireless signal in light emitted by plain old desklamps and other light fixtures. The team was able to achieve a record-setting data download rate of 230 megabits per second, and they expect to be able to double that speed in the near future. While the regular radio-frequency Wi-Fi most of us use currently is perfectly fine, it does have its flaws — it has a limited bandwidth that confines it to a certain spectrum and if you've ever had someone leech off of your connection, you know that it also leaks through walls. LED wireless signals would theoretically have none of these downsides."

  

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  SolarPHP 1.0 Released

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 3:18pm MST by timothy

  HvitRavn writes "SolarPHP 1.0 stable was released by Paul M. Jones today. SolarPHP is an application framework and library, and is a serious contender alongside Zend Framework, Symphony, and similar frameworks. SolarPHP has in the recent years been the cause of heated debate in the PHP community due to provocative benchmark results posted on Paul M. Jones' blog."

  

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  Best Smartphone Plan Covering US and Canada?

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 2:54pm MST by timothy

  j00bhaka writes "I am a US citizen attending university in Nova Scotia, Canada. I currently have the Verizon America and Canada plan (also known as the North American plan). My bill is currently around $80-$100 per month. I chose this for a couple reasons. One, I have had my number for about 7 years. Two, I do not permanently live in Canada. I live in Canada for 8 months out of the year at school, then travel home for the summer months. Either way, I would be dealing with international roaming without having both countries in my plan. Currently, I obviously don't have a smartphone. Through Verizon, I could purchase one, and add their international unlimited data plan on top of my (already) hefty phone bill. I have looked into Telus and Rogers here in Canada and cannot find anything better. As a student, my budget is obviously limited. Is there any way to reasonably have (and utilize) a smartphone while I am living in both countries? If so, what do you suggest I do?"

  

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  Pennsylvania CISO Fired Over Talk At RSA Conference

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 2:07pm MST by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes "Pennsylvania's chief information security officer Robert Maley has been fired for publicly talking about a security incident involving the Commonwealth's online driving exam scheduling system. He apparently did not get the required approval for talking about the incident from appropriate authorities."

  

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  Half-Male, Half-Female Fowl Explain Birds' Sex Determination

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 1:48pm MST by timothy

  Kanan excerpts from a BBC report out of Scotland: "A study of sexually scrambled chickens suggests that sex in birds is determined in a radically different way from that in mammals. Researchers studied three chickens that appeared to be literally half-male and half-female, and found that nearly every cell in their bodies — from wattle to toe — has an inherent sex identity. This cell-by-cell sex orientation contrasts sharply with the situation in mammals, in which organism-wide sex identity is established through hormones." Kanan also supplies this link to some pictures of the mixed-cell birds.

  

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  T-Mobile's First HSPA+ Modem Goes On Sale Sunday

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 1:24pm MST by timothy

  adeelarshad82 writes "T-Mobile announced that the webConnect Rocket USB Laptop Stick, the first HSPA+ device for the US, will be available beginning on Sunday, March 14. The device was originally announced at MWC in February. HSPA+ is interesting because it could enable 4G LTE-like speeds using existing 3G infrastructure and according to a hands-on, it smokes Wi-Max. Right now, it's still just for Philadelphia, although we should see several major cities light up with HSPA+ on both coasts well before the end of 2010."

  

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  EMI Cannot Unbundle Pink Floyd Songs

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 12:40pm MST by timothy

  smooth wombat writes "Before the advent of iTunes and MP3s, EMI and Pink Floyd entered into a contract which stated that EMI could not unbundle individual songs from their original album settings. This was insisted upon by the members of Pink Floyd, who wanted to retain artistic control of their works, which they considered 'seamless' pieces of music. However, with the advent of digital downloads, EMI has been selling individual songs through its online store. Pink Floyd sued, claiming EMI was violating the contract, whereas EMI said the contract only applied to physical albums, not Internet sales. Judge Andrew Morritt backed the band, saying the contract protected 'the artistic integrity of the albums.' Judge Morritt also ruled EMI is 'not entitled to exploit recordings by online distribution or by any other means other than the complete original album without Pink Floyd's consent.'"

  

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  Bill To Ban All Salt In Restaurant Cooking

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 12:22pm MST by timothy

  lord_rotorooter writes "Felix Ortiz, D-Brooklyn, introduced a bill that would ruin restaurant food and baked goods as we know them. The measure (if passed) would ban the use of all forms of salt in the preparation and cooking of food for all restaurants or bakeries. While the use of too much salt can contribute to health problems, the complete banning of salt would have negative impacts on food chemistry. Not only does salt enhance flavor, it controls bacteria, slows yeast activity and strengthens dough by tightening gluten. Salt also inhibits the growth of microbes that spoil cheese."

  

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  The 10 Most Absurd Scientific Papers

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 12:14pm MST by samzenpus

  Lanxon writes "It's true: 'Effects of cocaine on honeybee dance behavior,' 'Fellatio by fruit bats prolongs copulation time,' and 'Are full or empty beer bottles sturdier and does their fracture-threshold suffice to break the human skull?' are all genuine scientific research papers, and all were genuinely published in journals or similar publications. Wired's presentation of a collection of the most bizarrely-named research papers contains seven other gems, including one about naval fluff and another published in The Journal of Sex Research."

  

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  Multitasking in for iPhone 4.0?

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 11:57am MST by CmdrTaco

  The latest word on the iPhone is that the 4.0 OS will finally have honest-to-goodness multitasking. This could hopefully lead to things like a real chat client, and dangerous battery consumption. I still hope it's true.

  

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  Multitasking In For iPhone 4.0?

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 11:57am MST by CmdrTaco

  The latest word on the iPhone is that the 4.0 OS will finally have honest-to-goodness multitasking. This could hopefully lead to things like a real chat client, and dangerous battery consumption. I still hope it's true.

  

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  IE 6 & 7 Unpatched Exploit Goes Wild

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 11:19am MST by CmdrTaco

  Kolargol00 writes "Heise online reports the availability of an exploit (Google translation) for the yet-unpatched MSA-981374 affecting Internet Explorer 6 and 7. It has already been spotted in the wild by McAfee and integrated into the Metasploit Framework."

  

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  Apple Blocking iPhone Security Software

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 10:40am MST by CmdrTaco

  Barence writes "Speaking exclusively to PC Pro, Eugene Kaspersky has claimed Apple has repeatedly refused to deliver the software development kit necessary to design security software for the phone. 'We have been in contact for two years with Apple to develop our anti-theft software, [but] still we do not have permission,' said Kaspersky. Although he admits the risk of viruses infecting the iPhone is 'almost zero,' he claims that securing the data on the handset is critical, especially as iPhones are increasingly being used for business purposes. 'I don't want to say Apple's is the wrong way of behaving, or the right way,' Kaspersky added. 'It's just a corporate culture — it wants to control everything.'"

  

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  Drizzle's Future Moving to Rackspace?

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 9:57am MST by CmdrTaco

  abartels writes "It seems like there's been nothing but bad news and resignations coming from Oracle since it finally managed to close the deal on Sun. Finally, there's good news in that Drizzle seems to have a bright future ahead. It just isn't with Oracle, but with the Rackspace Cloud."

  

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  Drizzle's Future Moving To Rackspace?

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 9:57am MST by CmdrTaco

  abartels writes "It seems like there's been nothing but bad news and resignations coming from Oracle since it finally managed to close the deal on Sun. Finally, there's good news in that Drizzle seems to have a bright future ahead. It just isn't with Oracle, but with the Rackspace Cloud."

  

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  OpenGL 4.0 Spec Released

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 9:22am MST by CmdrTaco

  tbcpp writes "The Khronos Group has announced the release of the OpenGL 4.0 specification. Among the new features: two new shader stages that enable the GPU to offload geometry tessellation from the CPU; per-sample fragment shaders and programmable fragment shader input positions; drawing of data generated by OpenGL, or external APIs such as OpenCL, without CPU intervention; shader subroutines for significantly increased programming flexibility; 64-bit, double-precision, floating-point shader operations and inputs/outputs for increased rendering accuracy and quality. Khronos has also released an OpenGL 3.3 specification, together with a set of ARB extensions, to enable as much OpenGL 4.0 functionality as possible on previous-generation GPU hardware."

  

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  Sony's PS3 Motion Controller Gets Demoed and Named

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 8:38am MST by CmdrTaco

  itwbennett writes "In a 45-minute press conference at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Sony announced its motion controller, officially named the Playstation Move. The Move, consists of the Eye Toy (a camera pointed at the player) and a wand-like controller with a lighted ball at the end and a range of buttons on the shaft, writes blogger Peter Smith. 'Alternatively games can use two of the wands, or one wand and one "sub-controller" that has an analog stick (the camera is always required),' says Smith. 'If this is sounding very much like the Wii's Remote and Nunchuk well, you aren't far off (though at least there's no cable between the two parts to smack you in the face when things get heated).' Here are Smith's thoughts on the demo: 'All in all, the demos seemed OK, but I, at least, wasn't really blown away by any of them. That said, it's always hard to tell how well these systems work without actually trying them for yourself. You need to feel the connection (or lack thereof) between what your hands are doing and what's going on on-screen in order to be sure. For example, in the boxing demo the player did a quick spin move that led to a roundhouse punch. It's hard to say if his motion triggered a pre-set action (a 'combo') or if the system was able to track the controller that accurately, and was able to 'connect the dots' from when his body briefly occluded the wand to when it reappeared.'"

  

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  Sony's PS3 Motion Controller Gets Demoed and Named

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 8:38am MST by CmdrTaco

  itwbennett writes "In a 45-minute press conference at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Sony announced its motion controller, officially named the Playstation Move. The Move consists of the Eye Toy (a camera pointed at the player) and a wand-like controller with a lighted ball at the end and a range of buttons on the shaft, writes blogger Peter Smith. 'Alternatively games can use two of the wands, or one wand and one "sub-controller" that has an analog stick (the camera is always required),' says Smith. 'If this is sounding very much like the Wii's Remote and Nunchuk well, you aren't far off (though at least there's no cable between the two parts to smack you in the face when things get heated).' Here are Smith's thoughts on the demo: 'All in all, the demos seemed OK, but I, at least, wasn't really blown away by any of them. That said, it's always hard to tell how well these systems work without actually trying them for yourself. You need to feel the connection (or lack thereof) between what your hands are doing and what's going on on-screen in order to be sure. For example, in the boxing demo the player did a quick spin move that led to a roundhouse punch. It's hard to say if his motion triggered a pre-set action (a 'combo') or if the system was able to track the controller that accurately, and was able to 'connect the dots' from when his body briefly occluded the wand to when it reappeared.'"

  

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  Accidental Wii Suicide

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 8:00am MST by CmdrTaco

  Paul Taylor noted a story that I would have thought to be an April Fool's Day joke a few weeks from now, which makes it only seem more tragic. A 3-year-old shot herself with a gun after mistaking it for a Wii controller.

  

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  Bill Gates No Longer World's Richest Man

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 7:20am MST by CmdrTaco

  alphadogg writes "Riding surging prices of his various telecom holdings, including giant mobile outfit America Movil, Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helu has beaten out Americans Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to become the wealthiest person on earth and nab the top spot on the 2010 Forbes list of the World's Billionaires." I'd still let the guy buy me dinner if he's ever in my town. He's probably still good for it even though he's fallen on hard times.

  

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  Intel's Core I7-980X Six-Core Benchmarked

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 6:39am MST by CmdrTaco

  Ninjakicks writes "Although they won't hit store shelves for a few more weeks, today Intel has officially unveiled the new Core i7-980X Extreme processor. The Core i7-980X Extreme is based on Intel's 32nm Gulftown core, derived from their Nehalem architecture and sports six execution cores. The chip runs at a 3.33GHz clock frequency, that can jump up to 3.6GHz in Intel's Turbo Boost mode. This processor has a max TDP of 130W, which amazingly is the same as previous generation Core i7 quad-core CPUs. Of course, it's crazy fast too. Some may say that the majority of applications can't truly take advantage of the resources afforded by a six-core chip capable of processing up to 12 threads. However, the fact remains there are plenty of multi-threaded usage models and applications where the power of a CPU like this can be put to very good use."

  

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  N.Y. Health Insurers To Offer Virtual Doc Visits

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 5:57am MST by samzenpus

  CWmike writes "Two insurance organizations in upstate New York said on Wednesday that they will offer their members and employers virtual physician visits beginning this summer, making New York the fourth state to provide these types of services. BlueCross BlueShield of Western New York, BlueShield of Northeastern New York and technology services provider American Well said the Online Care service will allow members to talk with physicians in real time through a private online chat network or through a voice-over-IP phone call. The service also offers video chat and instant messages. Members can sign on to the insurer's Web sites and look for physicians who are available online in various specialty areas."

  

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  An Early Look At Civilization V

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 4:02am MST by Soulskill

  c0mpliant writes "IGN and Gamespot have each released a preview of the recently announced and eagerly awaited Civilization V. Apart from the obvious new hexagon shape of tiles and improved graphics, the articles go on to outline some of the major changes in the game, such as updated AI, new 'flavors' to world leaders and a potentially game-changing, one unit per tile system. No more will the stack of doom come to your city's doorsteps. Some features which will not be returning are religion and espionage. The removal of these two have sparked a frenzy of discussion on fan-related forums."

  

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  Historic IEEE 802 Group Looks Back and Forward

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 2:33am MST by samzenpus

  An anonymous reader writes "The IEEE MAN/LAN Standards Committee — better known as the people who brought us Ethernet, WiFi, and Bluetooth — is celebrating its 30th anniversary next week. This article has interviews with the original committee chairman and other veteran members, and reveals some of the inside situation. It also looks at some of the upcoming 802.x standards including one that sends data by modulating visible light."

  

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  Microsoft Shows Full 3D XNA Games On Windows Phone

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 1:31am MST by Soulskill

  suraj.sun writes "Microsoft has shown off XNA games running on Windows Phone; full 3D is a go. From Engadget: 'Microsoft just showed us a pair of 3D games running on its ASUS Windows Phone prototype and built with its brand new XNA Game Studio 4.0 9. The two titles are The Harvest, a good looking touch-controlled dungeon crawler with destructible environments, being developed by Luma Arcade; and Battle Punks. Microsoft spoke to the ease of its Direct3D development platform, which was built by the same folks responsible for the first-gen Xbox. What we saw of The Harvest was built in "two or three weeks," mostly from scratch, and folks who've already built games for XNA in VisualStudio shouldn't have much trouble with a port from the sound of things: "very, very easy," said Microsoft. Right now developers can do their testing in Windows, but there should be a Windows Phone 7 Series emulator out for devs eventually."

  

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  The Future of Wind Power May Be Underground

  Posted: March 11th, 2010, 12:20am MST by samzenpus

  Hugh Pickens writes "When the wind is blowing, it is usually the cheapest peaking power available. However utilities need consistent always-on power from large, cheap coal and nuclear power plants that are the backbone of the electric grid. Wired reports that operators are looking at Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) using abandoned mines and sandstones of the Midwest to store compressed-air. This converts the intermittent motions of the air into a steady power source by using it to run air compressors to pump air into an underground cave where it's stored under pressure. The first CAES plant in the United States actually went online in McIntosh, Alabama in 1991 where engineers created a geological pocket 900 feet long and up to 238 feet wide in a dome by pumping water into it to dissolve the rock salt. When the (briny) water was pumped back out, the salt resealed itself and they had an air-tight container."

  

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  New Phone Allows Bosses To Snoop On Staff

  Posted: March 10th, 2010, 10:21pm MST by samzenpus

  tad001 writes "The Japanese phone giant KDDI has developed a way to track users movements in fine detail. It works by analyzing the movement of accelerometers, found in many handsets. Activities such as walking, climbing stairs, or even cleaning can be identified, the researchers say. The company plans to sell the service to clients such as managers, foremen, and employment agencies."

  

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  Former TSA Analyst Charged With Computer Tampering

  Posted: March 10th, 2010, 8:19pm MST by samzenpus

  angry tapir writes "A Transportation Security Administration analyst has been indicted with tampering with databases used by the TSA to identify possible terrorists who may be trying to fly in the US. If convicted, he faces 10 years in prison."

  

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  "Mythical Man-Month" Supposedly Busted By MIT Startup

  Posted: March 10th, 2010, 6:15pm MST by samzenpus

  An anonymous reader writes "We all know about the Mythical Man-Month, the argument that adding more programmers to a software project just makes it later and later. A Linux startup out of MIT claims to have busted the myth, using an MIT holiday month to hire 20 college student interns to get all their work done and quadrupling its productivity."

  

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  Zeus Botnet Dealt a Blow As ISPs Troyak, Group 3 Knocked Out

  Posted: March 10th, 2010, 4:59pm MST by timothy

  itwbennett writes "Ninety of the 249 Zeus command-and-control servers were knocked offline overnight when two ISPs, named Troyak and Group 3, were taken offline. Whoever was behind the takedown 'just decided to knock out a large area of cyber-crime, and this was probably one of the easiest ways to do it,' said Kevin Stevens, a researcher with SecureWorks. As with the McColo takedown of just over a year ago, Troyak's upstream providers seem to have knocked it off the Internet, Cisco said in a statement. 'The ISP was "De-peered,"' Cisco said. 'Troyak's upstream network providers effectively pulled the plug on Troyak's router, refusing to transmit its traffic.'"

  

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  OnLive Remote Gaming Service Launches In June

  Posted: March 10th, 2010, 4:08pm MST by Soulskill

  adeelarshad82 writes "After eight years of development, remote gaming service OnLive is scheduled to roll out on June 17 for Windows and Mac. The company also announced its service pricing: users will need to pay $14.95 per month, which will allow them access to the service. However, the company did not disclose the price to rent or purchase games. 'It is partnering in this launch with publishers including Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, 2K Games, THQ and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The games will also include new releases like Mass Effect 2, Borderlands, Assassin’s Creed II, as well as a bunch of other titles. Perlman anticipates anywhere from a dozen to 25 titles to be available at launch time, and more after that, depending on how negotiations with other publishers proceed.'"

  

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  Google Opens Apps Marketplace

  Posted: March 10th, 2010, 3:27pm MST by timothy

  snydeq writes "Google has launched the Google Apps Marketplace, providing a venue for third-party, cloud-based applications to supplement Google's own online applications. The program enables integrations with such applications as Google Gmail, Documents, Sites, and Calendar. All told, the effort begins with 50 vendors participating, including Atlassian, NetSuite, Skytap, and Zoho. Participation in Google Apps Marketplace is open to customers of the Premier, Standard, and Education editions of Google Apps. Applications are linked to the marketplace via REST Web services and APIs including OpenID and OAuth."

  

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  Digitizing and Geocoding Old Maps?

  Posted: March 10th, 2010, 2:42pm MST by timothy

  alobar72 writes "I have quite a few old maps (several hundreds; 100+ years old, some are already damaged – so time is not on my side). What I want to do is to digitize them and to apply geo-coordinates to them so I can use them as overlays for openstreetmap data or such. Obviously I cannot put those maps onto my €80 scanner and go. Some of them are really large (1.5m x 1.5m roughly, I believe) and they need to be treated with great care because the paper is partly damaged. So firstly I need a method or service provider that can do the digitizing without damaging them. Secondly I need a hint what the best method is to apply geo coordinates to those maps then. The maps are old and landscape and places have changed, it maybe difficult to identify exact spots. So: are there any experiences or tips I could use?"

  

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  Sweet, Sour, Salty, Bitter, Protein ... and Now Fat

  Posted: March 10th, 2010, 2:21pm MST by timothy

  ral writes "The human tongue can taste more than sweet, sour, salty, bitter and protein. Researchers have added fat to that list. Dr. Russell Keast, an exercise and nutrition sciences professor at Deakin University in Melbourne, told Slashfood, 'This makes logical sense. We have sweet to identify carbohydrate/sugars, and umami to identify protein/amino acids, so we could expect a taste to identify the other macronutrient: fat.' In the Deakin study, which appears in the latest issue of the British Journal of Nutrition, Dr. Keast and his team gave a group of 33 people fatty acids found in common foods, mixed in with nonfat milk to disguise the telltale fat texture. All 33 could detect the fatty acids to at least a small degree."

  

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  The Lost Film That Accompanied Empire Strikes Back

  Posted: March 10th, 2010, 2:00pm MST by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes "'Alien' and 'Star Wars' art director Roger Christian was given £25,000 by George Lucas in 1979 to make a 25-minute medieval B-feature called 'Black Angel.' This spiritual tale of a knight on a strange quest was inspired by Christian's near-fatal fever when he fell ill in Mexico making 'Lucky Lady.' 'Black Angel' made a huge impression, not least because it shared the dark tone of 'Empire Strikes Back.' John Boorman showed it to the crew of 'Excalibur' as a template for how he wanted his film to look, and 'Black Angel' went on to influence films such as 'Dragonslayer' and 'Legend' throughout the 1980s and beyond. But it has not been seen by anyone since 'Empire' finished its theatrical run. Two weeks ago Roger Christian unearthed a print of a film that was thought lost forever, and in this interview he talks about 'Black Angel,' and provides the only picture from the film that has ever hit the Internet."

  

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  OpenSSH 5.4 Released

  Posted: March 10th, 2010, 1:40pm MST by timothy

  HipToday writes "As posted on the OpenBSD Journal, OpenSSH 5.4 has been released: 'Some highlights of this release are the disabling of protocol 1 by default, certificate authentication, a new "netcat mode," many changes on the sftp front (both client and server) and a collection of assorted bugfixes. The new release can already be found on a large number of mirrors and of course on www.openssh.com.'"

  

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  Amazon 1-Click Patent Survives Almost Unscathed

  Posted: March 10th, 2010, 1:18pm MST by timothy

  Zordak writes "Amazon's infamous '1-click' patent has been in reexamination at the USPTO for almost four years. Patently-O now reports that 'the USPTO confirmed the patentability of original claims 6-10 and amended claims 1-5 and 11-26. The approved-of amendment adds the seeming trivial limitation that the one-click system operates as part of a 'shopping cart model.' Thus, to infringe the new version of the patent, an eCommerce retailer must use a shopping cart model (presumably non-1-click) alongside of the 1-click version. Because most retail eCommerce sites still use the shopping cart model, the added limitation appears to have no practical impact on the patent scope.'" Also covered at TechFlash.

  

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  6 Smartphone Keyboards Compared

  Posted: March 10th, 2010, 12:35pm MST by timothy

  Barence writes "A debate that crops up time and again is whether it's better to have a dedicated keyboard on your smartphone or whether an on-screen keyboard with text correction is adequate. Some phones with screen-based keyboards have started to provide tactile feedback, either using an ultra-quick spin of their vibration alert or, like the BlackBerry Storm2, using clever piezo-electric technology to simulate the feel of a button press. But which system works best? PC Pro's Paul Ockendon gathered six of the most popular handsets around and put them through a timed typing test to see which proved quickest and most typo-free."

  

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  Man Threatened Spam Attack In $200,000 Extortion Plot

  Posted: March 10th, 2010, 12:17pm MST by samzenpus

  52-year-old Anthony Digati was arrested for trying to extort $200,000 from an insurance firm by threatening to spam them with six million emails unless they paid up. Digati said he would use a spam service and his amazing talents as a "huge social networker" to drag the company "through the muddiest waters imaginable" and presumably unfriend everyone. He added that the price would increase to $3 million if they failed to pay up by Monday, according to federal authorities.

  

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  Code Bubbles — Rethinking the IDE's User Interface

  Posted: March 10th, 2010, 11:52am MST by timothy

  kang327 writes "As Java developers we are used to the familiar file-based user interface that is used by all of the major IDEs. A team at Brown University has developed an IDE for Java called Code Bubbles that makes a fairly radical departure from current IDEs — it is based on fragments instead of files. The idea is that you can see many different pieces of code at once. Fragments can form groups, have automatic layout assistance, wrap long lines based on syntax, and exist in a virtual workspace that you can pan. A video shows reading and editing code, opening different kinds of info such as Javadocs, bug reports and notes, annotating and sharing workspaces, and debugging with bubbles. They report on several user studies that show the system increases performance for the tasks studied, and also that professional developers were enthusiastic about using it. There is also a Beta that you can sign up for."

  

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  Unboxing the Fake Intel Core i7-920

  Posted: March 10th, 2010, 11:10am MST by CmdrTaco

  SkinnyGuy writes "The only thing more remarkable than NewEgg shipping fake Core i7 CPUs to customers is getting your hands on one and checking it out. Apparently there are only a couple hundred of these things in existence and Gearlog somehow managed to get and unbox one. The images are fascinating."

  

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  Next-Gen Augmented Reality Rears Its Unreal Head

  Posted: March 10th, 2010, 10:30am MST by CmdrTaco

  andylim writes "Separate teams at Oxford university and Zentium, a South Korean company, are working on next-gen augmented reality solutions, which make it possible to fuse real and 3D computer-generated visuals on the fly using mobile phones. The team at Oxford university has named its solution Parallel Tracking and Mapping (PTAM) and it has licensed its technology to QderoPateo LLC, which has ambitious plans to grow the mobile augmented reality market and create an augmented reality search and gaming engine running for its 'Ouidoo' smart phone. Zentium's solution is called D-Track and is being used to develop the first markerless mobile augmented reality pet, called iKat. D-Track's mapping technology is very similar to PTAM and allows your phone to recognise the space in front of the camera and create an appropriate space for an augmented reality object or pet."

  

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  Farewell To the South Pole Dome

  Posted: March 10th, 2010, 9:49am MST by CmdrTaco

  Julie188 writes "After more than three decades of service to researchers and staff stationed at the bottom of the world, the dome at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station was deconstructed this austral summer. Designed and constructed by the Seabees — the construction battalions of the US Navy — in the early 1970s, the dome's geodesic design provided a unique solution to the challenges posed to engineers trying to build structures at the South Pole. The dome is being returned to southern California where it will be held in storage. It could possibly be trotted out as an exhibit in a new US Navy Seabees museum."

  

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  LHC Will Be Shut Down In 2011 Because of "Mistake"

  Posted: March 10th, 2010, 9:04am MST by CmdrTaco

  astroengine follows up to a story about the LHC shutting down that seems to have hit all the news replicators today. "It's to be expected when pushing the frontiers of physics, but the LHC's epic 'will it or won't it' saga continues. Due to an unforeseen construction mistake, the LHC will cease experiments for a year (starting around late-2011) so repairs and upgrades can be carried out. For now, accelerated particles will have a maximum energy of 7TeV (half the power of the LHC's design maximum), which is ample for at least 18 months of experiments before shutdown."

  

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  EU Parliament Rejects ACTA In a 663 To 13 Vote

  Posted: March 10th, 2010, 8:19am MST by CmdrTaco

  An anonymous reader writes "'The European Parliament defied the EU executive today (10 March), casting a vote against an agreement between the EU, the US and other major powers on combating online piracy and threatening to take legal action at the European Court of Justice.'"

  

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  Study Shows TV Makes Kids Fat, Computers Don't

  Posted: March 10th, 2010, 7:43am MST by CmdrTaco

  Xemu writes "Computers don't make children fat, but watching TV for the same length of time does. This is shown by a recent Swedish study of all school children in Lund's county conducted by RN Pernilla Garmy. The results were clear: The child's obesity was directly affected by placing a TV in the child's room, but placing a computer in the room had no effect at all. One theory is that it's common to have a snack in front of the TV, while a computer requires a more active user, for example when chatting or playing games."

  

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  Ex-Sun Chief Dishes Dirt On Gates, Jobs

  Posted: March 10th, 2010, 6:59am MST by CmdrTaco

  alphadogg writes "Former CEO of Sun Microsystems Jonathan Schwartz has taken to his personal blog, provocatively titled 'What I couldn't say ...,' to dish some industry dirt and tell his side of the story about the demise of Sun. He has already hinted at plans to write a book, and a new post suggests a tell-all tome could indeed be in the offing. 'I feel for Google — Steve Jobs threatened to sue me, too,' Schwartz writes, apparently referring to Apple's patent lawsuit against HTC, which makes Google's Nexus One smartphone. As for Bill Gates, Schwartz says he was threatening regarding Sun's efforts in the office software space."

  

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  Professors Banning Laptops In the Lecture Hall

  Posted: March 10th, 2010, 6:14am MST by kdawson

  Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that professors have banned laptops from their classrooms at George Washington University, American University, the College of William and Mary, and the University of Virginia, among many others, compelling students to take notes the way their parents did: on paper. A generation ago, academia embraced the laptop as the most welcome classroom innovation since the ballpoint pen, but during the past decade it has evolved into a powerful distraction as wireless Internet connections tempt students away from note-typing to e-mail, blogs, YouTube videos, sports scores, even online gaming. Even when used as glorified typewriters, laptops can turn students into witless stenographers, typing a lecture verbatim without listening or understanding. 'The breaking point for me was when I asked a student to comment on an issue, and he said, "Wait a minute, I want to open my computer,"' says David Goldfrank, a Georgetown history professor. 'And I told him, "I don't want to know what's in your computer. I want to know what's in your head."' Some students don't agree with the ban. A student wrote in the University of Denver's newspaper: 'The fact that some students misuse technology is no reason to ban it. After all, how many professors ban pens and notebooks after noticing students doodling in the margins?'"

  

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  Rock Band 3 Officially Announced For Holiday 2010

  Posted: March 10th, 2010, 4:25am MST by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "Philippe Dauman, Viacom CEO and President, announced today that Harmonix is currently working on the next Rock Band game, Rock Band 3, due for release Holiday 2010. 'The company is pursuing the game in spite of an industry-weakening decline in the once-booming genre of peripheral-equipped music games. Although the franchise has generated over $1 billion to date, the category in general saw sales contract by as much as half throughout 2009. MTV Games parent Viacom also saw Rock Band declines drag on its balance sheet in its last fiscal quarter, and expressed a need to refocus away from pricey peripherals in favor of software. It also said that due to royalties it would need to be more "selective" about track listings, and that it needs more support from the music industry in that department.'"

  

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  Linux Takes Over E-Voting In Australian State

  Posted: March 10th, 2010, 3:19am MST by kdawson

  daria42 writes "The Electoral Commission in the Australian state of Victoria has made plans to expand its use of electronic voting kiosks based on Linux in the next state election in November of this year. But it appears to be a little confused: the documentation states it will be using the '2.6 kernel/Gentoo release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.' Huh?"

  

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  Puzzle In xkcd Book Finally Cracked

  Posted: March 10th, 2010, 1:49am MST by kdawson

  An anonymous reader writes "After a little over five months of pondering, xkcd fans have cracked a puzzle hidden inside Randall Munroe's recent book xkcd: volume 0. Here is the start of the thread on the xkcd forums; and here is the post revealing the final message (a latitude and longitude plus a date and time)."

  

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  The Value of BASIC As a First Programming Language

  Posted: March 10th, 2010, 12:21am MST by kdawson

  Mirk writes "Computer-science legend Edsger W. Dijkstra famously wrote: 'It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.' The Reinvigorated Programmer argues that the world is full of excellent programmers who cut their teeth on BASIC, and suggests it could even be because they started out with BASIC."

  

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  US Considers Some Free Wireless Broadband Service

  Posted: March 9th, 2010, 9:29pm MST by kdawson

  gollum123 writes "US regulators may dedicate spectrum to free wireless Internet service for some Americans to increase affordable broadband service nationwide, the Federal Communications Commission said on Tuesday. The FCC provided few details about how it would carry out such a plan and who would qualify, but will make a recommendation under the National Broadband Plan set for release next week. The agency will determine details later. One way of making broadband more affordable is to 'consider use of spectrum for a free or a very low-cost wireless broadband service,' the FCC said in a statement." Nobody has more than a couple of paragraphs on this story. None of the press coverage mentions the obvious likelihood that any such free network would be heavily filtered, censored, and monitored.

  

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  US Gamers Spend $3.8 Billion On MMOs Yearly

  Posted: March 9th, 2010, 7:30pm MST by Soulskill

  eldavojohn writes "A new report from Games Industry indicates that MMO gamers in the United States paid $3.8 billion to play last year, with an analysis of five European countries bringing the total close to $4.5 billion USD. In America, the report estimated that payments for boxed content and client downloads amounted to a measly $400 million, while the subscriptions came to $2.38 billion. Hopefully that will fund some developer budgets for bigger and better MMOs yet to come. The study also found that roughly a quarter of the US population plays some form of MMO. Surely MMOs are shaping up to be a juicy industry, and a market that can satisfy people of all walks of life."

  

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  The World's First Commercially Available Jetpack

  Posted: March 9th, 2010, 5:33pm MST by kdawson

  ElectricSteve writes "It's been a long time coming. While Arthur C. Clarke's geosync satellites have taken to space, and James Bond's futuristic mobile technology has become commonplace, still the dream of sustained personal flight has eluded us — until now. At $86,000, the Martin Aircraft jetpack costs about as much as a high-end car, achieves a 30-minute flight time, and is fueled by regular gasoline. A 10% deposit buys you a production slot for 12 months hence." Here's a video of some indoor test flights. This isn't Buck Rogers's jetpack — it's about 5 by 5 feet and weighs more than the average human. You won't be able to commute with it (the FAA has not certified this class of device) so it's recreational only for now.

  

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  Google's Computing Power Refines Translation

  Posted: March 9th, 2010, 4:48pm MST by kdawson

  gollum123 sends an excerpt from the NY Times on how Google has taken a lead in language translation, in one of the company's few unqualified successes as it attempts to broaden is offerings beyond search. "...Google's quick rise to the top echelons of the translation business is a reminder of what can happen when Google unleashes its brute-force computing power on complex problems. The network of data centers that it built for Web searches may now be, when lashed together, the world's largest computer. Google is using that machine to push the limits on translation technology. Last month, for example, it said it was working to combine its translation tool with image analysis, allowing a person to, say, take a cellphone photo of a menu in German and get an instant English translation. ...in the mid-1990s, researchers began favoring a so-called statistical approach. They found that if they fed the computer thousands or millions of passages and their human-generated translations, it could learn to make accurate guesses about how to translate new texts. It turns out that this technique, which requires huge amounts of data and lots of computing horsepower, is right up Google's alley. ...Google's service is good enough to convey the essence of a news article, and it has become a quick source for translations for millions of people."

  

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  Jeff Jaffe Named CEO of W3C

  Posted: March 9th, 2010, 3:58pm MST by kdawson

  blozza2070 notes the news that Jeff Jaffe has been appointed CEO of the World Wide Web Consortium. Until January Jaffe was CTO at Novell and, while his name hasn't come up very often in this community, he is one of the architects of the Novell-Microsoft patent deal. A reading of Jaffe's blog while at Novell tends to paint him as a software patent supporter, Microsoft apologist, and no fan of the FSF. This strongly worded page at Boycott Novell features copious links to support the above characterization.

  

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  NewEgg Confirms Shipping Fake Core i7s

  Posted: March 9th, 2010, 3:12pm MST by kdawson

  adeelarshad82 writes "After originally rejecting the story, online retailer NewEgg confirmed that a shipment of Core i7s were indeed fake, and apologized for the affair. NewEgg has also broken off its relationship with IPEX, the supplier of the phony lot. The retailer said that it has already contacted affected customers and would continue to reach out and replace the counterfeit parts. We discussed the fake Core i7s over the weekend."

  

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  Dot-Com Craze Peaked 10 Years Ago This Week

  Posted: March 9th, 2010, 2:22pm MST by kdawson

  netbuzz writes "When the NASDAQ stock index hit its all-time high of 5,133 on March 10, 2000, it had more than doubled in a year and the dot-com bubble was already leaking in a big way. A week later the NASDAQ had fallen 9 percent. A year later it was below 2000. Gone were such poster children of the era as Pets.com, Kozmo, and — who could forget? — Whoopi Goldberg's Flooz. Here's a look back."

  

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  Best Resource For Identifying Legit Applications?

  Posted: March 9th, 2010, 1:30pm MST by kdawson

  bjb writes "While helping a somewhat computer illiterate person figure out a problem recently, they mentioned that PDF files had recently stopped working. Upon investigation I found something installed called 'PDF Suite.' Never having heard of it, I Googled it with 'malware' and other key words, but nothing turned up, though my suspicion remained (and was somewhat confirmed by WOT.) So my question is, where can you go to find out if something is legitimate? Because the person I'm helping is on a dial-up connection, downloading malware detection applications (and updates) is too heavy consider. And I don't maintain a USB stick with such apps, since I don't do this kind of thing very often. Where can you quickly find information?"

  

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  Cisco Introduces a 322 Tbit/sec. Router

  Posted: March 9th, 2010, 12:45pm MST by kdawson

  CWmike writes "Today Cisco Systems introduced its next-generation Internet core router, the CRS-3, with about three times the capacity of its current platform. 'The Internet will scale faster than any of us anticipate,' Cisco's John Chambers said while announcing the product. At full scale, the CRS-3 has a capacity of 322Tbit/sec., roughly three times that of the CRS-1, introduced in 2004. It also has more than 12 times the capacity of its nearest competitor, Chambers said. The CRS-3 will help the Internet evolve from a messaging to an entertainment and media platform, with video emerging as the 'killer app,' Chambers said. Using a CRS-3, every person in China, which has a population just over 1.3 billion, could participate in a video phone call at the same time. (Or you could pump nearly one Library of Congress per second through the device, or give everyone in San Fransisco a 1Gbps internet connection.) AT&T said it has been using the CRS-3 to test 100Gbit/sec. data links in tests on a commercial fiber route in Florida and Louisiana."

  

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  Doctors Skirt FDA To Heal Patients With Stem Cells

  Posted: March 9th, 2010, 11:57am MST by kdawson

  kkleiner writes "For many years countless individuals in the US have had to watch with envy as dogs and horses with joint and bone injuries have been cured with stem cell procedures that the FDA has refused to approve for humans. Now, in an exciting development, Regenerative Sciences Inc. in Colorado has found a way to skirt the FDA and provide these same stem cell treatments to humans. The results have been stunning, allowing many patients to walk or run who have not been able to do so for years. There's no surgery required, just a needle to extract and then re-inject the cells where they are needed. There has always been a lot of hype around stem cells, but this is the real deal. Real humans are getting real treatment that works, and we should all hope that more companies will begin offering this procedure in other states soon."

  

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  The Secret Origin of Windows

  Posted: March 9th, 2010, 11:12am MST by Soulskill

  harrymcc writes "Windows has been so dominant for so long that it's easy to forget Windows 1.0 was vaporware, mocked both outside and inside of Microsoft — and that its immediate successors were considered stopgaps until OS/2 was everywhere. Tandy Trower, the product manager who finally got Windows 1.0 out the door a quarter century ago, has written a memoir of the experience. (He thought being assigned the much-maligned project was Microsoft's fiendish way of trying to get rid of him.) The story involves such still-significant figures as Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Ray Ozzie, and Nathan Myhrvold; Trower left Microsoft only in November of 2009 after 28 years with the company."

  

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  Open Data Needs Open Source Tools

  Posted: March 9th, 2010, 10:29am MST by Soulskill

  macslocum writes "Nat Torkington begins sketching out an open data process that borrows liberally from open source tools: 'Open source discourages laziness (because everyone can see the corners you've cut), it can get bugs fixed or at least identified much faster (many eyes), it promotes collaboration, and it's a great training ground for skills development. I see no reason why open data shouldn't bring the same opportunities to data projects. And a lot of data projects need these things. From talking to government folks and scientists, it's become obvious that serious problems exist in some datasets. Sometimes corners were cut in gathering the data, or there's a poor chain of provenance for the data so it's impossible to figure out what's trustworthy and what's not. Sometimes the dataset is delivered as a tarball, then immediately forks as all the users add their new records to their own copy and don't share the additions. Sometimes the dataset is delivered as a tarball but nobody has provided a way for users to collaborate even if they want to. So lately I've been asking myself: What if we applied the best thinking and practices from open source to open data? What if we ran an open data project like an open source project? What would this look like?'"

  

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  HTC Android Phones Found With Malware Pre-Installed

  Posted: March 9th, 2010, 9:45am MST by Soulskill

  Trailrunner7 writes "Security researchers have found that Vodafone, one of the world's larger wireless providers, is distributing some HTC phones with malware pre-installed on them. The phone, HTC's Magic, runs the Google Android mobile operating system, and is one of the more popular handsets right now. A researcher at Panda Software received one of the handsets recently, and upon attaching it to her PC, found that the phone was pre-loaded with the Mariposa bot client. Mariposa has been in the news of late thanks to some arrests connected to the operation of the botnet."

  

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  Cybercrooks Surpassed Old School Bankrobbers In '09

  Posted: March 9th, 2010, 9:04am MST by Soulskill

  krebsonsecurity writes "Organized cyber-criminal gangs stole $25 million in the 3rd quarter alone last year, by pilfering the online bank accounts of small to midsized businesses, the FDIC reported last week. In contrast, traditional bank robbers hauled just $9.4 million in 1,184 bank robberies during that same period, according to an analysis of FBI bank crime statistics by krebsonsecurity.com. From that story: 'The federal government sure publishes a lot more information about physical bank robberies than it makes available about online stick-ups. Indeed, the FBI's bank crime stats are extraordinarily detailed. For example, they can tell you that in the 3rd quarter of last year, bank robbers were more likely to hold up their local branch between the hours of 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. on a Wednesday than at any other time or day of the week; they can tell you the number of tear gas and dye packs taken with the loot, the number of security cameras activated, the number of food stamps taken, even what percentage of suspected perpetrators had illegal drug habits at the time of the robberies. About the only thing the stats don't tell you is what brand of jeans the perpetrators were wearing and whether the getaway car had cool vanity plates. What do we get about e-crime statistics from the federal government? One guy from the FDIC giving a speech at the RSA conference."

  

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  European Parliament Declaring War Against ACTA

  Posted: March 9th, 2010, 8:23am MST by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "The European Parliament is preparing to take on ACTA. A joint resolution (DOC) has been tabled by the major EP parties that threatens to go to court unless things change. The EP is calling for public access to negotiation texts and rules out further confidential negotiations. Moreover, the EP wants a ban on imposing a three-strikes model, assurances that ACTA will not result in personal searches at the border, and an ACTA impact assessment on fundamental rights and data protection."

  

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  Apple's iPhone Developer License Agreement Revealed

  Posted: March 9th, 2010, 7:40am MST by Soulskill

  nigham writes "The EFF is publicly disclosing a version of Apple's iPhone developer program license agreement. The highlights: you can't disclose the agreement itself (the EFF managed to get it via the Freedom of Information Act thanks to NASA's recent app), Apple reserves the right to kill your app at any time with no reason, and Apple's liability in any circumstance is limited to 50 bucks. There's also this gem: 'You will not, through use of the Apple Software, services or otherwise create any Application or other program that would disable, hack, or otherwise interfere with the Security Solution, or any security, digital signing, digital rights management, verification or authentication mechanisms implemented in or by the iPhone operating system software, iPod Touch operating system software, this Apple Software, any services or other Apple software or technology, or enable others to do so.' The entire agreement (PDF) is up at the EFF's site."

  

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  US Immigration Bill May Bring a National Biometric ID Card

  Posted: March 9th, 2010, 6:56am MST by Soulskill

  schwit1 sends this quote from the Wall Street Journal: "Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain. Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal US workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker. ... A person familiar with the legislative planning said the biometric data would likely be either fingerprints or a scan of the veins in the top of the hand. It would be required of all workers, including teenagers, but would be phased in, with current workers needing to obtain the card only when they next changed jobs, the person said. The card requirement also would be phased in among employers, beginning with industries that typically rely on illegal-immigrant labor."

  

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  50% Efficiency Boost From New Fuel Injection System

  Posted: March 9th, 2010, 6:14am MST by kdawson

  chudnall notes a Technology Review story on a new gas engine injection system that promises increased efficiency of up to 50%. "The key is heating and pressurizing gasoline before injecting it into the combustion chamber, says Mike Rocke, Transonic's vice president of business development. This puts it into a supercritical state that allows for very fast and clean combustion, which in turn decreases the amount of fuel needed to propel a vehicle. The company also treats the gasoline with a catalyst that 'activates' it, partially oxidizing it to enhance combustion."

  

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  Making Sense of CPU and GPU Model Numbers?

  Posted: March 9th, 2010, 3:20am MST by kdawson

  b4dc0d3r writes "How do you make sense of the various model numbers or naming schemes for CPUs, graphics cards, and the related chipsets? All I want is something that will run Oblivion and output full 1080 video to a TV. Last time I built my own computer I just went to Pricewatch, made a few easy choices, and everything came to my door. Do I really have to research the differences among Core i5, Core 2 Duo, Pentium 4, Pentium D, Semperon, Athlon, Phenom...? And that's just the processor. Is there a reference somewhere? In short, how do you buy a computer these days?"

  

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  NSA Still Ahead In Crypto, But Not By Much

  Posted: March 9th, 2010, 12:22am MST by kdawson

  Hugh Pickens writes "Network World summarizes an RSA Conference panel discussion in which former NSA technical director Brian Snow said that cryptographers for the NSA have been losing ground to their counterparts in universities and commercial security vendors for 20 years, but still maintain the upper hand in the sophistication of their crypto schemes and in their ability to decrypt. 'I do believe NSA is still ahead, but not by much — a handful of years,' says Snow. 'I think we've got the edge still.' Snow added that that in the 1980s there was a huge gap between what the NSA could do and what commercial encryption technology was capable of. 'Now we are very close together and moving very slowly forward in a mature field.' The NSA has one key advantage (besides their deep staff of Ph.D. mathematicians and other cryptographic experts who work on securing traffic and breaking codes): 'We cheat. We get to read what [academics] publish. We do not publish what we research,' he said. Snow's claim of NSA superiority seemed to rankle some members on the panel. Adi Shamir, the "S" in the RSA encryption algorithm, said that when the titles of papers in NSA technical journals were declassified up to 1983, none of them included public key encryption; 'That demonstrates that NSA was behind,' said Shamir. Snow replied that when technologies are developed separately in parallel, the developers don't necessarily use the same terms for them."

  

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  Jobs Says No Tethering iPad To iPhone

  Posted: March 8th, 2010, 9:31pm MST by kdawson

  tugfoigel writes "Anyone who currently owns an iPhone and was hoping they would be able to use it as a mobile Web access point for a Wi-Fi iPad just got some bad news. Reportedly, Steve Jobs has said this will not happen. Swedish blog Slashat.se claims they e-mailed Jobs directly to ask him whether or not you'd be able to tether your iPad and iPhone and received a terse 'No' in reply. According to the report, the email headers made it plausible that the reply had come from Jobs's iPhone."

  

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  Why Microsoft Can't Afford To Let Novell Die

  Posted: March 8th, 2010, 7:37pm MST by kdawson

  geek4 sends in an analysis indicating that Microsoft may have the most to lose if hedge-fund operator Elliot buys Novell. (The eWeekEurope piece is based on a longer and geekier writeup by Andy Updegrove on how the mechanics of unsolicited tender offers can play out in the tech world.) To avoid meltdown or asset-stripping, Novell can try and find a preferred bidder — a company with some interest in running Novell as a business, and preferrably a tech company. Or another company may make a move independently. But who might that be? A couple of analysts have suggested IBM, Oracle, or SAP. These all have problems... Microsoft is in a similar category, with one added problem. ... Microsoft has staked any open source credibility that it has on Novell's SUSE distribution. If Novell falls to bits, then Microsoft's efforts to gain open source cred pretty much disappear with it. It's something that would have been impossible to imagine a few years back, but if we're looking for someone to prop Novell up, Microsoft would now be a prime candidate."

  

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  AIDS Virus Can Hide In Bone Marrow

  Posted: March 8th, 2010, 5:42pm MST by kdawson

  suraj.sun writes "The virus that causes AIDS can hide in the bone marrow, avoiding drugs and later awakening to cause illness, according to new research that could point the way toward better treatments for the disease. Dr. Kathleen Collins of the University of Michigan and her colleagues report in this week's edition of the journal Nature Medicine that the HIV virus can infect long-lived bone marrow cells that eventually convert into blood cells. The virus is dormant in the bone marrow cells, she said, but when those progenitor cells develop into blood cells, it can be reactivated and cause renewed infection. The virus kills the new blood cells and then moves on to infect other cells, said. In recent years, drugs have reduced AIDS deaths sharply, but patients need to keep taking the medicines for life or the infection comes back, Dr. Collins said."

  

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  Microsoft Giving Rival Browsers a Lift

  Posted: March 8th, 2010, 5:01pm MST by kdawson

  gollum123 tips an article at the NY Times on the progress of the European Windows browser choice screen that we have been discussing recently. "Rivals of Microsoft's market-leading Web browser have attracted a flurry of interest since the company, fulfilling a regulatory requirement, started making it easier for European users of its Windows operating system to switch. Mozilla, whose Firefox browser is the strongest competitor to Microsoft's Internet Explorer worldwide, said that more than 50,000 people had downloaded Firefox via a 'choice screen' that has been popping up on Windows-equipped computers in Europe since the end of last month. ... Opera Software, based in Oslo, said downloads of its browser in Belgium, France, Britain, Poland, and Spain had tripled since the screen began to appear. Microsoft said it was too early to tell whether the choice screen might prompt significant numbers of users to change. The digital ballot is being delivered over the Internet with software updates, and it is expected to take until mid-May to complete the process. The browser choice will also be presented to buyers of new Windows computers across the European Union for five years."

  

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  Major ISPs Help Fund BitTorrent User Tracking Research

  Posted: March 8th, 2010, 4:15pm MST by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "I was scanning conference proceedings to come up with ideas for a reading group I run at my workplace, and I noticed an interesting paper from the new IEEE WIFS forensics conference. Researchers from the University of Colorado have published a technique for tracking BitTorrent users (PDF) by joining and actively probing torrent swarms using low-cost cloud computing services. They claim their methods allowed them to monitor the entire Pirate Bay torrent set for as little as $13/mo using EC2. But that's not even the interesting part. Their work appears to have been 'funded in part through gifts from PolyCipher' — a broadband ISP consortium. That's right; three major national ISPs funded this round of BitTorrent tracking research, not the MPAA/RIAA. Could this be evidence of ISP support for ACTA and a global three-strikes law?"

  

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  Google To Steal Office Web Apps' Thunder?

  Posted: March 8th, 2010, 3:32pm MST by Soulskill

  Barence writes "Google has stepped up its assault on Microsoft's productivity software with the acquisition of a start-up company that allows Office users to edit and share their documents on the Web. The search giant has acquired DocVerse for an undisclosed sum. Product manager Jonathan Rochelle said DocVerse software makes it easier for users and businesses to move their existing PC documents to the cloud, and that Google 'fell in love with what they were doing to make that transition easier.' Microsoft said in an emailed statement that Google's acquisition of DocVerse acknowledges that customers want to use and collaborate with Office documents. 'Furthermore, it reinforces that customers are embracing Microsoft's long-stated strategy of software plus services, which combines rich client software with cloud services.'"

  

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  Gas Wants To Kill the Wind

  Posted: March 8th, 2010, 2:48pm MST by Soulskill

  RABarnes writes "Scientific American has posted an article about the political efforts of natural gas and electric utilities to limit the growth of wind-generated electricity. Although several of the points raised by the utilities and carbon-based generators are valid, the basic driver behind their efforts is that wind-generation has now successfully penetrated the wholesale electricity market. Wind was okay until it became a meaningful competitor to the carbon dioxide-producing entities. Among the valid points raised by the carbon-based generators are concerns about how the cost of electricity transmission are allocated and how power quality can be improved (wind generation — from individual sites — is hopelessly variable). But there are fixes for all of the concerns raised by the carbon-based entities and in almost all cases they have been on the other side of the question in the past."

  

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  8-Core Intel Nehalem-EX To Launch This Month

  Posted: March 8th, 2010, 2:29pm MST by Soulskill

  MojoKid writes "What could you do with 8 physical cores of CPU processing power? Intel's upcoming 8-core Nehalem-EX is launching later this month, according to Intel Xeon Platform Director Shannon Poulin. The announcement puts to rest rumors that the 8-core part might be delayed, and makes good on a promise Intel made last year when the chip maker said it would release the chip in the first half of 2010. To quickly recap, Nehalem-EX boasts an extensive feature-set, including up to 8 cores per processor, up to 16 threads per processor with Intel Hyper-threading, scalability up to eight sockets via Intel's serial Quick Path Interconnect and more with third-party node controllers, and 24MB of shared cache."

  

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  Valve Confirms Mac Versions Of Steam, Valve Games

  Posted: March 8th, 2010, 2:06pm MST by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Gamasutra: "Valve will release a version of its Steam digital distribution service for Mac next month, along with Mac-native versions of its own games, the company confirmed today after days of hints — and owners of Valve games will have access to both platform versions. The Source engine, which Valve uses to develop all its internal titles and also licenses to third-party developers, will incorporate OpenGL in addition to DirectX, to allow Mac support for all Source developers. ... 'We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform, so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360,' said Cook. 'Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates.'"

  

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  Valve Confirms Mac Versions of Steam, Valve Games

  Posted: March 8th, 2010, 2:06pm MST by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Gamasutra: "Valve will release a version of its Steam digital distribution service for Mac next month, along with Mac-native versions of its own games, the company confirmed today after days of hints — and owners of Valve games will have access to both platform versions. The Source engine, which Valve uses to develop all its internal titles and also licenses to third-party developers, will incorporate OpenGL in addition to DirectX, to allow Mac support for all Source developers. ... 'We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform, so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360,' said Cook. 'Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates.'"

  

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  US Eases Internet Export Rules To Iran, Sudan, Cuba

  Posted: March 8th, 2010, 1:23pm MST by Soulskill

  coondoggie writes "Looking to facilitate what it calls free speech rights in countries that don't look favorably at such liberties, the US government today said it would ease the regulations around exporting Internet-based applications to Iran, Sudan and Cuba. Specifically, the Treasury Department said it would add general licenses (PDF) authorizing the exportation of free, personal, Internet-based communications services – such as instant messaging, chat and email, and social networking – to those three countries. The amendments also allow the exportation of related software to Iran and Sudan, the department said in a release (the US Commerce Department controls software exports with Cuba). Until now all such exports would have broken federal laws."

  

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  Disposable Toilet To Change the World

  Posted: March 8th, 2010, 12:39pm MST by samzenpus

  captn ecks writes "A biodegradable and self-sterilizing bag for people of the toilet-disenfranchised world (40% of humankind) to dispose of their bodily waste and turn it into safe fertilizer has been created by a Swedish entrepreneur. It's a dead simple and brilliant solution to a vexing problem. From the article: 'Once used, the bag can be knotted and buried, and a layer of urea crystals breaks down the waste into fertilizer, killing off disease-producing pathogens found in feces. The bag, called the Peepoo, is the brainchild of Anders Wilhelmson, an architect and professor in Stockholm. “Not only is it sanitary,” said Mr. Wilhelmson, who has patented the bag, “they can reuse this to grow crops.”'"

  

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  MIT Produces Electricity Using Thermopower Waves

  Posted: March 8th, 2010, 11:55am MST by Soulskill

  MikeChino writes "MIT scientists have discovered a never-before-known phenomenon wherein carbon nanotubes can be used to harness energy from 'thermopower waves.' To do this they coated the nanotubes with a reactive fuel and then lit one end, causing a fast-moving thermal wave to speed down the length of the tube. The heat from the fuel rises to a temperature of 3,000 kelvins, and can speed along the tube 10,000 times faster than the normal spread of this chemical reaction. The heat also pushes electrons down the tube, which creates a substantial electrical current. The system can output energy (in proportion to its weight) about 100x greater than an equivalent weight lithium-ion battery, and according to MIT the discovery 'opens up a new area of energy research, which is rare.'"

  

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  Game Devs Only Use PhysX For the Money, Says AMD

  Posted: March 8th, 2010, 11:15am MST by Soulskill

  arcticstoat writes "AMD has just aimed a shot at Nvidia's PhysX technology, saying that most game developers only implement GPU-accelerated PhysX for the money. AMD's Richard Huddy explained that 'Nvidia creates a marketing deal with a title, and then as part of that marketing deal, they have the right to go in and implement PhysX in the game.' However, he adds that 'the problem with that is obviously that the game developer doesn't actually want it. They're not doing it because they want it; they're doing it because they're paid to do it. So we have a rather artificial situation at the moment where you see PhysX in games, but it isn't because the game developer wants it in there.' AMD is pushing open standards such as OpenCL and DirectCompute as alternatives to PhysX, as these APIs can run on both AMD and Nvidia GPUs. AMD also announced today that it will be giving away free versions of Pixelux's DMM2 physics engine, which now includes Bullet Physics, to some game developers."

  

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  What To Expect From HTML5

  Posted: March 8th, 2010, 10:32am MST by Soulskill

  snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Neil McAllister takes a deeper look at HTML5, outlining what developers should expect from this overhaul of HTML — one that some believe could put an end to proprietary Web technologies such as Flash and Silverlight. Among the most eagerly anticipated additions to HTML5 are new elements and APIs that allow content authors to create rich media using nothing more than standards-based HTML. The standard also introduces browser-based application caches, which enable Web apps to store information on the client device. 'But for all of HTML5's new features, users shouldn't expect plug-ins to disappear overnight. The Web has a long history of many competing technologies and media formats, and the inertia of that legacy will be difficult to overcome. It may yet be many years before a pure-HTML5 browser will be able to match the capabilities of today's patchwork clients,' McAllister writes. 'In the end, browser market share may be the most significant hurdle for developers interested in making the most of HTML5. Until these legacy browsers are replaced with modern updates, Web developers may be stuck maintaining two versions of their sites: a rich version for HTML5-enabled users, and a version for legacy browsers that falls back on outdated rendering tricks.'"

  

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  Energizer USB Battery Charger Software Infects PCs

  Posted: March 8th, 2010, 9:49am MST by Soulskill

  swandives writes "Researchers at US-CERT have warned that software accompanying the Energizer DUO USB battery charger contains a Trojan that gives hackers total access to a Windows PC. The product was sold in the US, Latin America, Europe and Asia starting in 2007. Upon installation, the software creates the file 'Arucer.dll,' a Trojan that listens for commands on TCP port 7777. Upon receiving instructions, the Trojan can download and execute files, transmit files stolen from the PC, or tweak the Windows registry. Uninstalling the software disables the automatic execution of the Trojan. Users can also remove Arucer.dll from Windows' system32 directory and reboot the machine to disable the backdoor component."

  

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  How The Internet Didn't Fail As Predicted

  Posted: March 8th, 2010, 9:22am MST by samzenpus

  Lord Byron Eee PC writes "Newsweek is carrying a navel-gazing piece on how wrong they were when in 1995 they published a story about how the Internet would fail. The original article states, 'Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure.' The article continues to say that online shopping will never happen, that airline tickets won't be purchased over the web, and that newspapers have nothing to fear. It's an interesting look back at a time when the Internet was still a novelty and not yet a necessity."

  

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  How the Internet Didn't Fail As Predicted

  Posted: March 8th, 2010, 9:22am MST by samzenpus

  Lord Byron Eee PC writes "Newsweek is carrying a navel-gazing piece on how wrong they were when in 1995 they published a story about how the Internet would fail. The original article states, 'Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure.' The article continues to say that online shopping will never happen, that airline tickets won't be purchased over the web, and that newspapers have nothing to fear. It's an interesting look back at a time when the Internet was still a novelty and not yet a necessity."

  

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  When the Power Goes Out At Google

  Posted: March 8th, 2010, 9:07am MST by Soulskill

  1sockchuck writes "What happens when the power goes out in one of Google's mighty data centers? The company has issued an incident report on a Feb. 24 outage for Google App Engine, which went offline when an entire data center lost power. The post-mortem outlines what went wrong and why, lessons learned and steps taken, which include additional training and documentation for staff and new datastore configurations for App Engine. Google is earning strong reviews for its openness, which is being hailed as an excellent model for industry outage reports. At the other end of the spectrum is Australian host Datacom, where executives are denying that a Melbourne data center experienced water damage during weekend flooding, forcing tech media to document the outage via photos, user stories and emails from the NOC."

  

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  Theoretical Breakthrough For Quantum Cryptography

  Posted: March 8th, 2010, 8:23am MST by Soulskill

  KentuckyFC writes "Quantum cryptography uses the quantum properties of photons to guarantee perfect secrecy. But one of its lesser known limitations is that it only works if Alice and Bob are perfectly aligned so that they can carry out well-defined polarization measurements on the photons as they arrive. Physicists say that Alice and Bob must share the same reference frame. That's OK if Alice and Bob are in their own ground-based labs, but it's a problem in many other applications, such as ground-to-satellite communications or even in chip-to-chip communications, because it's hard to keep chips still over distances of the order of the wavelength of light. Now a group of UK physicists have developed a way of doing quantum cryptography without sharing a reference frame. The trick is to use entangled triplets of photons, so-called qutrits, rather than entangled pairs. This solves the problem by embedding it in an extra abstract dimension, which is independent of space. So, as long as both Alice and Bob know the way in which all these abstract dimensions are related, the third provides a reference against which measurements of the other two can be made. That allows Alice and Bob to make any measurements they need without having to agree ahead of time on a frame of reference. That could be an important advance enabling the widespread use of quantum cryptography."

  

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  Edward Tufte Appointed To Help Track and Explain Stimulus Funds

  Posted: March 8th, 2010, 7:41am MST by Soulskill

  President Obama recently announced several appointments to the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel, including data visualization expert Edward Tufte, author of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. The purpose of the panel is to advise the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, whose aim is "To promote accountability by coordinating and conducting oversight of Recovery funds to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse and to foster transparency on Recovery spending by providing the public with accurate, user-friendly information." Tufte said on his website, "I'm doing this because I like accountability and transparency, and I believe in public service. And it is the complete opposite of everything else I do. Maybe I'll learn something. The practical consequence is that I will probably go to Washington several days each month, in addition to whatever homework and phone meetings are necessary."

  

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  Serious Apache Exploit Discovered

  Posted: March 8th, 2010, 6:58am MST by Soulskill

  bennyboy64 writes "An IT security company has discovered a serious exploit in Apache's HTTP web server, which could allow a remote attacker to gain complete control of a database. ZDNet reports the vulnerability exists in Apache's core mod_isapi module. By exploiting the module, an attacker could remotely gain system privileges that would compromise data security. Users of Apache 2.2.14 and earlier are advised to upgrade to Apache 2.2.15, which fixes the exploit." Note: according to the advisory, this exploit is exclusive to Windows.

  

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  Apple's "iKey" Wants To Unlock All Doors

  Posted: March 8th, 2010, 6:15am MST by kdawson

  Pickens writes "The Telegraph reports that Apple is developing technology, already being nicknamed the 'iKey,' which will allow users to gain access to their office and unlock their car or front door with a single electronic device like an iPhone. Users would simply have to enter a PIN and wave the device over an electronic pad fitted beside a door to open it. 'The device can communicate with an external device to open a lock. By way of example, the electronic device may be a model of an iPhone,' says the newly released patent application. 'The external device may be any suitable electronic device such as a portable media player, personal data assistant or electronic lock that may be used to access a door, car, house, or other physical area.' The technology behind the invention is known as Near Field Communication; it allows electronic devices to transmit information when in proximity. 'If true, it's a very big deal. As well as opening doors and unlocking your car, it could also turn your iPhone into an electronic wallet and ID card,' says Leander Kahney, a consumer technology expert. 'The trouble is that the technology hasn't gone completely mainstream. If Apple were to adopt the technology, they would likely set the standard, and that would drive widespread adoption as everyone scrambles to make their systems iPhone-friendly.'"

  

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  Ask the UK Pirate Party's Andrew Robinson About the Issues

  Posted: March 8th, 2010, 3:06am MST by kdawson

  VJ42 writes "With the 2010 UK general election fast approaching, the Pirate Party of the United Kingdom will be fielding elections for the first time. The Digital Economy bill and ACTA are hot topics for UK geeks, and the Pirate Party is looking to pick up some votes. Their leader, Andrew Robinson, has agreed to answer your questions. Normal Slashdot interview rules apply."

  

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  Insomniacs, the Phantoms of the Internet

  Posted: March 7th, 2010, 11:52pm MST by kdawson

  theodp writes "Ever since she was a toddler, freelance writer Lily Burana has been a Stay Up Late kind of girl. When her kindergarten teacher asked students 'What time do you go to bed?,' young Lily felt compelled to lie rather than rat out her own mother by saying, 'Oh, between midnight and 1 a.m.' She still suffers from insomnia, but has discovered that Facebook is the Promised Land for the awake and alone. She finds comfort in the company of others who, like her, live counter to the conventional rhythm of a sunny-day world."

  

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  Time To Take the Internet Seriously

  Posted: March 7th, 2010, 8:39pm MST by kdawson

  santosh maharshi passes along an article on Edge by David Gelernter, the man who (according to the introduction) predicted the Web and first described cloud computing; he's also a Unabomber survivor. Gelernter makes 35 predictions and assertions, some brilliant, some dubious. "6. We know that the Internet creates 'information overload,' a problem with two parts: increasing number of information sources and increasing information flow per source. The first part is harder: it's more difficult to understand five people speaking simultaneously than one person talking fast — especially if you can tell the one person to stop temporarily, or go back and repeat. Integrating multiple information sources is crucial to solving information overload. Blogs and other anthology-sites integrate information from many sources. But we won't be able to solve the overload problem until each Internet user can choose for himself what sources to integrate, and can add to this mix the most important source of all: his own personal information — his email and other messages, reminders and documents of all sorts. To accomplish this, we merely need to turn the whole Cybersphere on its side, so that time instead of space is the main axis. ... 14. The structure called a cyberstream or lifestream is better suited to the Internet than a conventional website because it shows information-in-motion, a rushing flow of fresh information instead of a stagnant pool."

  

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  Facebook Founder Accused of Hacking Into Rivals' Email

  Posted: March 7th, 2010, 6:28pm MST by kdawson

  An anonymous reader notes a long piece up at BusinessInsider.com accusing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg of hacking into the email accounts of rivals and journalists. The CEO of the world's most successful social networking website was accused of at least two breaches of privacy. In a two-year investigation detailing the founding of Facebook, Nicholas Carlson, a senior editor at Silicon Alley Insider, uncovered what he claimed was evidence of the hackings in 2004. "New information uncovered by Silicon Alley Insider suggests that some of the complaints [in a court case ongong since 2007] against Mark Zuckerberg are valid. It also suggests that, on at least one occasion in 2004, Mark used private login data taken from Facebook's servers to break into Facebook members' private email accounts and read their emails — at best, a gross misuse of private information. Lastly, it suggests that Mark hacked into the competing company's systems and changed some user information with the aim of making the site less useful. ... Over the past two years, we have interviewed more than a dozen sources familiar with aspects of this story — including people involved in the founding year of the company. We have also reviewed what we believe to be some relevant IMs and emails from the period. Much of this information has never before been made public. None of it has been confirmed or authenticated by Mark or the company." The single-page view doesn't have its own URL; click on "View as one page" near the bottom.

  

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  Ubisoft's Authentication Servers Go Down

  Posted: March 7th, 2010, 5:23pm MST by kdawson

  ZuchinniOne writes "With Ubisoft's fantastically awful new DRM you must be online and logged in to their servers to play the games you buy. Not only was this DRM broken the very first day it was released, but now their authentication servers have failed so absolutely that no-one who legally bought their games can play them. 'At around 8am GMT, people began to complain in the Assassin's Creed 2 forum that they couldn't access the Ubisoft servers and were unable to play their games.' One can only hope that this utter failure will help to stem the tide of bad DRM."

  

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  Pixel Qi Introduces a DIY Kit

  Posted: March 7th, 2010, 4:13pm MST by kdawson

  jones_supa writes "Pixel Qi has just revealed their DIY kit for netbooks, planned to be out near the end of Q2 — sounds like June. This makes it possible to retrofit a screen to one fully readable in direct sunlight. In her blog, Mary Lou Jepsen says: 'It’s only slightly more difficult than changing a lightbulb: it’s basically 6 screws, pulling off a bezel, unconnecting the old screen and plugging this one in. That’s it. It’s a 5 minute operation.' She also talks about the 'laptop hospital,' a service depot started by kids in Africa."

  

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  Correcting Poor Typing Technique?

  Posted: March 7th, 2010, 3:01pm MST by kdawson

  An anonymous reader writes "When beginning to use keyboards I did not pay much attention to touch typing technique. Instead, I eventually achieved decent rates by simply doing what felt natural to me. These days my qwerty typing speed is in the range of 90-110 WPM, probably more toward the lower end. While this isn't too shabby, I feel some awkwardness in my technique (such as not using my little and ring fingers when I really should). Has anyone been in a similar situation, wanted to fix it, and actually done so? What do you reckon is the best way to fix half-broken typing? Touch training sessions? Should I switch to Dvorak and pretty much learn typing from scratch, but properly this time?"

  

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  Algebra In Wonderland

  Posted: March 7th, 2010, 1:43pm MST by kdawson

  theodp writes "As Tim Burton's 'Alice in Wonderland' shatters 3-D and IMAX records en route to a $116.3 million opening, the NY Times offers a rather cerebral op-ed arguing that Alice's search for a beautiful garden can be neatly interpreted as a mishmash of satire directed at the advances taking place in mid-19th century math. Charles Dodgson, who penned 'Alice' under the name Lewis Carroll, was a tutor in mathematics at Christ Church in Oxford who found the radical new math illogical and lacking in intellectual rigor. Op-ed writer Melanie Bayley explains: 'Chapter 6, "Pig and Pepper," parodies the principle of continuity, a bizarre concept from projective geometry, which was introduced in the mid-19th century from France. This principle (now an important aspect of modern topology) involves the idea that one shape can bend and stretch into another, provided it retains the same basic properties — a circle is the same as an ellipse or a parabola (the curve of the Cheshire cat's grin). Taking the notion to its extreme, what works for a circle should also work for a baby. So, when Alice takes the Duchess's baby outside, it turns into a pig. The Cheshire Cat says, "I thought it would."'"

  

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  Herschel Space Observatory Finds Precursors of Life In Orion

  Posted: March 7th, 2010, 12:25pm MST by kdawson

  ogre7299 recommends an announcement out of Caltech on a milestone for HIFI, the Herschel Space Observatory's Heterodyne Instrument for the Far Infrared. "The Herschel Space Observatory has revealed the chemical fingerprints of potential life-enabling organic molecules in the Orion Nebula, a nearby stellar nursery in our Milky Way galaxy. ... This detailed-spectrum, obtained with the Heterodyne Instrument for the Far Infrared (HIFI) — one of Herschel's three innovative instruments — demonstrates the gold mine of information that Herschel-HIFI will provide on how organic molecules form in space. The spectrum, one of the first to be obtained with HIFI since it returned to full health in January 2010 following technical difficulties, clearly demonstrates that the instrument is working well. ... [The HIFI instrument had previously been offline since] August 2009 when HIFI experienced an unexpected voltage spike in the electronic system, probably caused by a high-energy cosmic particle, resulting in the instrument shutting down. On 14 January 2010, HIFI was successfully switched back on using its spare electronics, with science observations commencing on 28 February."

  

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  ABC Pulls Channels From Cablevision

  Posted: March 7th, 2010, 11:08am MST by Soulskill

  wkurzius writes "Cablevision and ABC have failed to come to an agreement after two years of negotiations, and as a result ABC has pulled all their channels from the Cablevision lineup. The dispute is over $40 million in new retransmission fees that Cablevision says they won't give to ABC. On the other side, Cablevision has been accused of not being fair to their customers despite pocketing $8 billion last year. 'The companies immediately published press releases Sunday morning, blaming each other for failing to reach a deal. Cablevision subscribers on Twitter expressed their frustration, saying they shouldn't be deprived of ABC shows, including the Oscars on Sunday, because of a multi-million-dollar deal gone awry. Competitors such as Verizon Communications took advantage of the dispute. The company launched television, newspaper, and online ads offering Cablevision customers speedy installs to subscribe to its FiOS television service along with $75 gift cards, highlighting a fierce war for subscribers in the valuable New York market.'"

  

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  Microsoft Demos Three Platforms Running the Same Game

  Posted: March 7th, 2010, 10:24am MST by Soulskill

  suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from Engadget: "Microsoft's Eric Rudder, speaking at TechEd Middle East, showed off a game developed in Visual Studio as a singular project (with 90% shared code) that plays on Windows with a keyboard, a Windows Phone 7 Series prototype device with accelerometer and touch controls, and the Xbox 360 with the Xbox gamepad. Interestingly, not only is the development cross-platform friendly, but the game itself (a simple Indiana Jones platformer was demoed) saves its place and lets you resume from that spot on whichever platform you happen to pick up."

  

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  New "Hairy" Material Is Almost Perfectly Hydrophobic

  Posted: March 7th, 2010, 9:53am MST by Soulskill

  drewsup writes "Wolfgang Sigmund, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Florida, has created a material modeled after spider hairs that acts as a nearly perfect water-repelling surface. Quoting Science Daily: 'A paper about the surface, which works equally well with hot or cold water, appears in this month's edition of the journal Langmuir. Spiders use their water-repelling hairs to stay dry or avoid drowning, with water spiders capturing air bubbles and toting them underwater to breathe. Potential applications for UF's ultra-water-repellent surfaces are many, Sigmund said. When water scampers off the surface, it picks up and carries dirt with it, in effect making the surface self-cleaning. As such, it is ideal for some food packaging, or windows, or solar cells that must stay clean to gather sunlight, he said. Boat designers might coat hulls with it, making boats faster and more efficient.' Hairy glass, anyone?"

  

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  Toyota's Engineering Process and the General Public

  Posted: March 7th, 2010, 8:37am MST by Soulskill

  Doofus writes "The Washington Post has published in today's paper an article titled 'Why it's so hard for Toyota to find out what's wrong' by Frank Ahrens on the Toyota situation and the difficulties of adequately conveying to Senators and Representatives — most of whom are non-technical — the debugging process. Ahrens interviews Giorgio Rizzoni, an 'expert in failure analysis' at Ohio State, who describes the iterations of testing that NHTSA will likely inflict on the Toyota sample cars they have purchased, and then moves into the realm of software and systems verification: 'He explained that each vehicle contains "layers of computer code that may be added from one model year to next" that control nearly every system, from acceleration to braking to stability. Rizzoni said this software is rigorously tested, but he added: "It is well-known in our community that there is no scientific, firm way of actually completely verifying and validating software."' Ahrens ends the piece with a quote from a 2009 LA Times interview with former UCLA psychology professor Richard Schmidt about how user reports are often unreliable: 'When the driver says they have their foot on the brake, they are just plain wrong. The human motor system is not perfect, and it doesn't always do what it is told.'" Toyota is currently planning an event to challenge evidence presented by professor David W. Gilbert that called into question Toyota's electronic throttle system.

  

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  Why Broadband In North America Is Not That Slow

  Posted: March 7th, 2010, 7:24am MST by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "The Globe & Mail has an article written in response to a recent study done by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard about how far behind the rest of the world the US and Canada are with regard to broadband internet. The refutation basically tears apart Harvard's analysis and shows why the US and Canada are actually far ahead of most European countries. 'Canada has a true broadband penetration rate of close to 70 per cent of households. And North Americans use the Internet somewhat more intensively than do Europeans, according to Cisco Systems data on Internet traffic. Further, business Internet traffic in North America appears to be at levels substantially higher than elsewhere in the world. Sadly, there is little systematic effort by international agencies to measure the intensity of Internet usage. Instead, we see comparisons of advertised speeds and "price per advertised megabit," which are especially misleading. Advertised broadband speeds vary from actual speeds. In North America, this is largely a result of "network overhead," and is quite modest. In Europe, however, the variation is often dramatic.'"

  

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  Ars Technica Inveighs Against Ad Blocking

  Posted: March 7th, 2010, 6:10am MST by kdawson

  An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica recently conducted a 12-hour experiment in which story content was hidden from users of popular ad blocking tools. Explaining the experiment, Ken Fisher appealed to Ars's readership: 'My argument is simple: blocking ads can be devastating to the sites you love. I am not making an argument that blocking ads is a form of stealing, or is immoral, or unethical, or makes someone the son of the devil. It can result in people losing their jobs, it can result in less content on any given site, and it definitely can affect the quality of content. It can also put sites into a real advertising death spin. As ad revenues go down, many sites are lured into running advertising of a truly questionable nature. We've all seen it happen. I am very proud of the fact that we routinely talk to you guys in our feedback forum about the quality of our ads. I have proven over 12 years that we will fight on the behalf of readers whenever we can. Does that mean that there are the occasional intrusive ads, expanding this way and that? Yes, sometimes we have to accept those ads. But any of you reading this site for any significant period of time know that these are few and far between. We turn down offers every month for advertising like that out of respect for you guys. We simply ask that you return the favor and not block ads.'"

  

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  Sumo Wrestler Steals Cash Machine From Moscow Shop

  Posted: March 7th, 2010, 4:34am MST by kdawson

  timothy writes "Anyone skeevy and devious enough can buy online an ATM skimmer from some underhanded maker of same, but why not cut out the middleman, and just take the cash directly? (Also, if you're going to attempt to stop him, can I have your watch when you are dead?)"

  

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  Lessons of a $618,616 Death

  Posted: March 7th, 2010, 3:14am MST by kdawson

  theodp writes "Two years after her husband's death, Amanda Bennett examines the costs and complex questions of keeping one man alive. The bills for his seven-year battle with cancer totaled $618,616, almost two-thirds of which was for his final 24 months. No one can say for sure if the treatments helped extend his life, and she's left with a question she still can't answer: When is it time to quit?"

  

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  A Balanced Look At Cellphone Radiation

  Posted: March 7th, 2010, 12:22am MST by kdawson

  A month back we discussed an article in GQ on the alarmist side of the cellphone-radiation question. Now reader pgn674 passes along a PopSci feature article looking at the current state of cellphone radiation research. It profiles people who claim to be electro-hypersensitive, "who are reluctant to subject themselves to hours in an electronics-laden facility" for studies. The limited research on that condition is still showing that sufferers, in blind tests, are unable to detect radiation at levels better than chance. The article also touches on the relationship of non-ionizing radiation to cancer. The conclusion is that while it seems unlikely high-frequency fields in consumer devices directly cause cancer, they might promote it, and might also indirectly cause other health deficits beyond simply heating nearby tissue — though one skeptical researcher cautions, "The gap between a biological effect and an adverse health effect is a big one."

  

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  Whatever Happened To Programming?

  Posted: March 6th, 2010, 9:26pm MST by kdawson

  Mirk writes "In a recent interview, Don Knuth wrote: 'The way a lot of programming goes today isn't any fun because it's just plugging in magic incantations — combine somebody else's software and start it up.' The Reinvigorated Programmer laments how much of our 'programming' time is spent pasting not-quite-compatible libraries together and patching around the edges." This 3-day-old article has sparked lively discussions at Reddit and at Hacker News, and the author has responded with a followup and summation.

  

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  Amateur Records the "Sound" of Mars Express

  Posted: March 6th, 2010, 7:39pm MST by kdawson

  gyrogeerloose writes "A French amateur radio operator who built his own ground station using equipment from an abandoned telecom uplink site has listened in on the ESA's Mars Express space probe. While his antenna is too small to allow him to download actual data, he was able to record and convert the signal of the probe's X-Band transmitter into an audio file."

  

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  Coping With 1 Million SSH Authentication Failures?

  Posted: March 6th, 2010, 5:51pm MST by kdawson

  An anonymous reader writes "I own a small Web development studio that specializes in open source software, primarily Drupal, WordPress, and Joomla for small businesses. Our production servers, which host about 50 sites and generate ~20K hits/week, are managed by a 3rd party that I'm sure many on Slashdot would recognize. Earlier today I was researching some problems on one of our sites and found that there have been over 1 million SSH authentication failures from ~1200 IP addresses on one of our servers over the last year. I contacted the ISP, who had promised me that server security would be actively managed, and their recommendation was, 'change the SSH port!' Of course this makes sense and may help to an extent, but it still doesn't solve the problem I'm facing: how do you manage server security on a tight budget with literally no system admin (except for me and I know I'm a n00b)? User passwords are randomly generated, we use a non-standard SSH port, and do not use any unencrypted services such as FTP. Is there a server monitoring program you would recommend? Is there an ISP or Web-based service that specializes in this?"

  

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  Some Newegg Customers Received Fake Intel Core i7s

  Posted: March 6th, 2010, 3:58pm MST by kdawson

  Several readers have mentioned the strange goods that some customers received from Newegg in place of the Intel Core i7 920 processor they ordered. Word on the problem first surfaced on TribalWar on Thursday evening. Newegg still hasn't commented on this. It's not known whether it happened as a result fraud by another Newegg customer, in shipping, or where. The "processors" are made of aluminum, and the "fans" are some kind of synthetic molded material. The "factory seal" was printed onto the box; the holographic stickers on the boxes were also faked. The first part of this video shows the bogus goods. At this writing Google News lists a handful of blogs mentioning the fakes.

  

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  Popular Science Frees Its 137-Year Archives

  Posted: March 6th, 2010, 2:49pm MST by kdawson

  DesScorp writes "Popular Science magazine has scanned every issue they've ever produced, and posted the archives at their website, at no charge. 'We've partnered with Google to offer our entire 137-year archive for free browsing. Each issue appears just as it did at its original time of publication, complete with period advertisements. It's an amazing resource that beautifully encapsulates our ongoing fascination with the future, and science and technology's incredible potential to improve our lives. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.'" First search: the history of the flying car.

  

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  Why Wikipedia Articles Vary So Much In Quality

  Posted: March 6th, 2010, 1:42pm MST by kdawson

  Hugh Pickens writes "A new study shows that the patterns of collaboration among Wikipedia contributors directly affect the quality of an article. 'These collaboration patterns either help increase quality or are detrimental to data quality,' says Sudha Ram at the University of Arizona. Wikipedia has an internal quality rating system for entries, with featured articles at the top, followed by A, B, and C-level entries. Ram and graduate student Jun Liu randomly collected 400 articles at each quality level. 'We used data mining techniques and identified various patterns of collaboration based on the provenance or, more specifically, who does what to Wikipedia articles,' says Ram. The researchers identified seven specific roles that Wikipedia contributors play (PDF starting on page 175): Casual Contributor, Starter, Cleaner, Copy Editor, Content Justifier, Watchdog, and All-round Editor. Starters, for example, create sentences but seldom engage in other actions. Content justifiers create sentences and justify them with resources and links. The all-round contributors perform many different functions. 'We then clustered the articles based on these roles and examined the collaboration patterns within each cluster to see what kind of quality resulted,' says Ram. 'We found that all-round contributors dominated the best-quality entries. In the entries with the lowest quality, starters and casual contributors dominated.'"

  

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  PayPal Freezes Cryptome's Account

  Posted: March 6th, 2010, 12:34pm MST by kdawson

  grimwell sends in the news that after Cryptome's little run-in with Microsoft and NetSol, the activist site has now had its funds frozen by PayPal. Cryptome founder John Young notes, "Google lists thousands of instances of this asymmetrical high-handedness." "We have reviewed your PayPal Account, and due to the excessive risk involved, we would like to begin parting ways in a manner that is least disruptive to your business."

  

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  Xbox Live Now Allows Gender Expression

  Posted: March 6th, 2010, 11:57am MST by Soulskill

  Last year we discussed news that an Xbox Live gamer was banned for identifying herself as a lesbian on her profile. Microsoft said at the time that nothing sexual in nature could appear in Gamertags or profiles. Now, they seem to have reconsidered their stance, and they've updated their Code of Conduct accordingly. Xbox Live General Manager Marc Whitten wrote: "[The update] will allow our members to more freely express their race, nationality, religion and sexual orientation in Gamertags and profiles. Under our previous policy, some of these expressions of self-identification were not allowed in Gamertags or profiles to prevent the use of these terms as insults or slurs. However we have since heard feedback from our customers that while the spirit of this approach was genuine, it inadvertently excluded a part of our Xbox LIVE community. This update also comes hand-in-hand with increased stringency and enforcement to prevent the misuse of these terms."

  

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  Improving Education Through Better Teachers

  Posted: March 6th, 2010, 11:33am MST by Soulskill

  theodp writes "The teaching profession gets schooled in cover stories from the big pubs this weekend, as Newsweek makes the case for Why We Must Fire Bad Teachers, and the NY Times offers the more hopeful Building a Better Teacher. For the past half-century, professional educators believed that if they could only find the right pedagogy, the right method of instruction, all would be well. They tried New Math, open classrooms, Whole Language — but nothing seemed to achieve significant or lasting improvements. But what they ignored was the elephant in the room — if the teacher sucks, the students suck. Or, as the Times more eloquently puts it: 'William Sanders, a statistician studying Tennessee teachers with a colleague, found that a student with a weak teacher for three straight years would score, on average, 50 percentile points behind a similar student with a strong teacher for those years. Teachers working in the same building, teaching the same grade, produced very different outcomes. And the gaps were huge.' But what makes a good teacher? When Bill Gates announced his foundation was investing $335 million in a project to improve teaching quality, he added a rueful caveat. 'Unfortunately, it seems the field doesn't have a clear view of what characterizes good teaching,' Gates said. 'I'm personally very curious.'"

  

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  Wear Leveling, RAID Can Wipe Out SSD Advantage

  Posted: March 6th, 2010, 10:32am MST by Soulskill

  storagedude writes "This article discusses using solid state disks in enterprise storage networks. A couple of problems noted by the author: wear leveling can eat up most of a drive's bandwidth and make write performance no faster than a hard drive, and using SSDs with RAID controllers brings up its own set of problems. 'Even the highest-performance RAID controllers today cannot support the IOPS of just three of the fastest SSDs. I am not talking about a disk tray; I am talking about the whole RAID controller. If you want full performance of expensive SSDs, you need to take your $50,000 or $100,000 RAID controller and not overpopulate it with too many drives. In fact, most vendors today have between 16 and 60 drives in a disk tray and you cannot even populate a whole tray. Add to this that some RAID vendor's disk trays are only designed for the performance of disk drives and you might find that you need a disk tray per SSD drive at a huge cost.'"

  

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  The Evolution of Reading In the Digital Age

  Posted: March 6th, 2010, 9:27am MST by Soulskill

  Doofus writes "'Print is dying. Digital is surging. Everyone is confused.' is the subtitle of Craig Mod's thoughtful discussion aboutthe evolution of reading material from printed dead-tree to flowing digital content. I stumbled upon his blog post from a related NYTimes article, Former Book Designer Says Good Riddance to Print. He breaks reading material down into two basic categories: 'Formless,' in which the content and meaning of the writing has no dependency on presentation, and 'Definite,' in which layout and presentation play a role in conveying meaning. Mod makes the point that as digital presentation improves, devices such as the iPad will bring authors newer and improved platforms upon which to display Definite content. Despite this, he says, some works will be better consumed in physical print because 'They're books that embrace their physicality or have stood the test of time. They're the kinds of books the iPad can't displace because they're complete objects.'"

  

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  Shuttle Extension & Heavy Launcher Bill Proposed

  Posted: March 6th, 2010, 8:24am MST by Soulskill

  FleaPlus writes "In light of Congressional resistance to the new plans for NASA (criticized as 'radical') proposed by NASA head Charles Bolden, Sen. Hutchinson (R-TX and ranking member of the Senate committee dealing with NASA) has proposed a compromise bill. Hutchinson's bill calls for postponing the Space Shuttle's retirement until 2015, and instead of wholly canceling Constellation/Ares, it would adapt the more effective portions to a 'government-operated space transportation system,' largely inspired by the DIRECT proposal. NASA would also pursue commercial crew and cargo launches to orbit, although the bill leaves out Charles Bolden's proposal for R&D of 'game-changing' technologies for sustainable and cost-effective space exploration."

  

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  Why Paying For Code Doesn't Mean You Own It

  Posted: March 6th, 2010, 7:20am MST by Soulskill

  Barence writes "Why do people think they own code just because they've paid for it? PC Pro's Kevin Partner says many of his clients believe that by paying for the work to be done, they take ownership of it. But, put simply, code is owned by its developer even once the client has paid, unless that developer is legally employed by the client or a contract exists that transfers full ownership (and even then it's far from clear-cut). He discusses the thorny issue of making clients understand that distinction and gives advice on how developers can assert their rights."

  

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  Sony Patents Game Demos With Feature Erosion

  Posted: March 6th, 2010, 6:18am MST by timothy

  MojoKid writes "When a game developer releases a demo, it's typically intended to entice players into first trying and then purchasing the full version. This is the stuff of Game Design 101 for most of us, but a crack team of cutting-edge gaming researchers at Sony have applied for a patent based on a novel concept: game demos that become progressively less fun the more you play. Sony refers to this as 'feature erosion.' The idea behind this dubious concept is that gamers will become hooked on a game while it's still in demo, then squawk unhappily as features and abilities they've unlocked begin to disappear. In order to prevent this, the player ponies up for the full version. A demo or program that provides limited functionality or play time is one thing; a game that's purposefully designed to take your progress away, in an admitted attempt to get you to buy once you've been hooked, is something altogether different."

  

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  TiVo Time Warp Judgment Affirmed

  Posted: March 6th, 2010, 5:07am MST by timothy

  zapakh writes "A federal appeals court this week upheld a lower court decision that accused DISH Network and EchoStar of continuing to infringe on TiVo patents.' This is a follow-on to a Slashdot story from October. Despite a 'Herculean effort' by EchoStar in redesigning its DVR software, the ruling agrees with the district court that that was not a major redesign of the software. The patent in question is titled 'Multimedia time warping system.' TiVo is pleased with the ruling."

  

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  Could the Tumbleweed Rover Dominate Mars?

  Posted: March 6th, 2010, 2:01am MST by timothy

  astroengine writes "Mars has been visited by orbiters, landers and rovers, but could the future of Martian exploration be inspired by a wind-blown sphere? NASA and other research institutions have been developing the Mars Tumbleweed rover for the last decade, but with the help of the Planetary Science Institute, the Tumbleweed is now vying for some serious funding to further develop the technologies required. Although the Tumbleweed would be wholly dependent on the prevailing winds on the Martian surface, the lightweight and relatively cheap design could lead the way for a 'swarm' of independent Tumbleweeds to explore vast regions of the planet (video link). In 2003 and 2004, NASA even tested an inflatable Tumbleweed prototype on Greenland and Antarctica — it traversed hundreds of miles with ease, continually relaying location and environmental data."

  

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  YouTube Makes Captioning Available To All

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 10:55pm MST by timothy

  adeelarshad82 writes "Google's YouTube announced that it has moved its automatic speech-recognition and closed-captioning technology out of beta and has now made it available to the YouTube community at large. Most, if not all, YouTube videos now include a 'CC' button that, if pressed, will automatically generate the closed-captioning technology. The technology processes the audio feed using the speech-recognition technology used in the core voice search feature that has also been built into the Android voice search feature, the GOOG-411 phone search, and other products."

  

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  California Lake's Arsenic Hints At a Shadow Biosphere

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 9:00pm MST by timothy

  MichaelSmith writes "Scientists think that there might be arsenic-based life in Mono Lake, California. If it's shown to exist, such life could have evolved independently from our own, or it could have forked from ours at a very early stage."

  

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  Best WAP For Dense Crowds?

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 7:52pm MST by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes "A local community organization has asked me to help them set up Wi-Fi access for an upcoming event, with some unusual (to me) requirements. All users (up to 500 people) will occupy a relatively small area and more-or-less have line-of-sight to the WAP, so issues like signal strength and wall penetration don't matter. Security also does not matter, as we plan to open this to anyone wanting to connect. Cost always matters, but we realize a $50 Linksys or three won't cut it here. In the past, I have used Cisco AP1200s for a few dozen users to great satisfaction, but they only handle 50 connections at a time, and practically count as antiques at this point anyway. My research on the matter tells me that 802.11n performs far better in this regard, but I want to support 802.11g as well. I have no objection to using two APs to split those apart (with n limited to 5.8GHz, as per the suggestion of several comments in a recent Ask Slashdot), but physical constraints make it preferable to minimize the total number of APs needed — Ten WRT54s might cost about the same as one Aironet, but I only have three good places to mount these. I welcome any suggestions and real-world experiences with similar situations, including the ever-popular Ask Slashdot refrain of 'What kind of idiot would do it like that, when you can just do this?' Ideally, I would like to know model numbers and how well they held up under real-world loads comparable to my situation."

  

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  California To Create Public Animal Abuser Registry

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 6:18pm MST by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes "California legislators are moving forward with plans to create a public, online, animal abuser registry identical in function to the public sex offender registry. Is this the slippery slope to further government mandated lists and registries?"

  

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  Law Prevents British Websites From Being Archived

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 5:03pm MST by timothy

  Lanxon writes "The law that allows the US Internet Archive to collect and preserve websites does not apply to British archivists. In fact, experts from the Archive and many other archivist institutions argue that the only way the millions of Britain's websites could be legally archived is if British law itself was amended, reports Wired in an investigation published today. Currently, archivists have to seek permission from webmasters of every single site before they are able to take snapshots and retain data."

  

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  Bluetooth 4.0 Devices To Make the Scene Later This Year

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 4:12pm MST by ScuttleMonkey

  Engadget is reporting that new Bluetooth 4.0 devices could be hitting the scene later this year, and it looks like Bluetooth low energy has been added to the spec. "But don't expect any dramatic changes in battery life for most of your gadgets: while the low energy spec introduces connectivity to a host of lower-power devices that have in the past relied on proprietary technology (such as watches, pedometers, and cats), your traditional Bluetooth devices, such as phones and laptops, will consume roughly the same amount of power. Indeed, the low energy spec is merely throwing smaller devices (with smaller amounts of data to transfer) in to the mix: if you want Trans-Siberian Orchestra to sound as glorious as ever on your wireless headphones, you'll need to push as much data (and hence draw as much power) with version 4 as you would with version 3."

  

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  Microsoft "Courier" Pictures

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 3:31pm MST by ScuttleMonkey

  tekgoblin writes to let us know that Gizmodo has some early shots of the new prototype "Courier" booklet (foldable tablet) on the way from Microsoft. "Courier is a real device, and we've heard that it's in the 'late prototype' stage of development. It's not a tablet, it's a booklet. The dual 7-inch (or so) screens are multitouch, and designed for writing, flicking and drawing with a stylus, in addition to fingers. They're connected by a hinge that holds a single iPhone-esque home button. Statuses, like wireless signal and battery life, are displayed along the rim of one of the screens. On the back cover is a camera, and it might charge through an inductive pad, like the Palm Touchstone charging dock for Pre."

  

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  Valve Announces Portal 2

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 2:49pm MST by Soulskill

  eldavojohn writes "Enough rumors, Portal 2 is due out for 2010. Valve also let users know through an announcement on Steam. Game Informer seems to be the de facto provider of Portal 2 information so far. Prepare yourselves for more aperture science! Notice anything funny about the underlined letters in Steam's announcement?"

  

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  Dr. NakaMats Is the World's Most Prolific Inventor

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 2:04pm MST by ScuttleMonkey

  MMBK writes to share an interesting look at Dr. "NakaMats" Nakamatsu, mastermind behind a world-record 3,000 patents. The 81-year-old scientist has inventions like the "PyonPyon" spring shoes, the karaoke machine, and others. He's also at least partly to blame for things like the digital watch, the floppy disk, and CDs. "Dr. Nakamatsu harbors other ambitions too: in 2007, he took his penchant for political campaigning to a new level, becoming a candidate in the gubernatorial election in Tokyo, and the election for the Upper House. Although he failed to get a seat, Dr. NakaMats has other tricks up his sleeve. In 2005 he was awarded the Ig Nobel prize for Nutrition, for photographing and retrospectively analyzing every meal he has consumed during a period of 34 years (and counting). By the time he dies at the age of 144 (a goal he maintains with an elaborate daily ritual that rejuvenates his body and triggers his creative process), he intends to patent 6,000 inventions."

  

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  New Heat-Reduced Magnetic Solder Could Revolutionize Chip Design

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 1:19pm MST by ScuttleMonkey

  A new heat-reduced soldering technique using magnets may lead to some revolutionary changes in the way chips are manufactured. Details are scant since the inventor seems to be playing it close to the vest for now in hopes of attracting chipmaker interest. "The result is a tin-silver alloy that contains a dispersion of iron particles tens of micrometers in diameter. When a magnetic field is applied to the solders, two things happen. First, the iron particles heat up, locally melting the solder. This localized heating, which works on the same principle as inductive stoves, remains completely contained, keeping the surrounding area cool. And second, the iron particles line up with the direction of the magnetic field, squeezing and pushing the liquid in that direction. This alignment is retained when the solder solidifies, and the well-ordered particles provide mechanical reinforcement that's greater than that afforded by a regular dispersion of particles."

  

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  Asus Takes Another Stab at Revolutionizing Netbook Market

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 12:36pm MST by ScuttleMonkey

  Perhaps most well known for their netbook innovations with the Eee PC, Asus is at it again with their latest rollout at CeBIT Germany. The "Waveface Light," a new concept laptop, can be used as a conventional laptop or converted to a tablet by removing the keyboard and opening it to a completely flat position. Sounds like either a stroke of genius or a "small widget broke and now it's worthless" design issue.

  

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  Microsoft Sends Flowers To Internet Explorer 6 Funeral

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 12:08pm MST by ScuttleMonkey

  Several readers have written with a fun follow up to yesterday's IE6 funeral. Apparently Microsoft, in a rare moment of self-jest, took the time to send flowers, condolences, and a promise to meet at MIX. The card reads: "Thanks for the good times IE6, see you all @ MIX when we show a little piece of IE Heaven. The Internet Explorer Team @ Microsoft."

  

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  Microsoft Sends Flowers To Internet Explorer 6 Funeral

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 12:08pm MST by ScuttleMonkey

  Several readers have written with a fun followup to yesterday's IE6 funeral. Apparently Microsoft, in a rare moment of self-jest, took the time to send flowers, condolences, and a promise to meet at MIX. The card reads: "Thanks for the good times IE6, see you all @ MIX when we show a little piece of IE Heaven. The Internet Explorer Team @ Microsoft."

  

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  Microsoft Spends $9 Billion On Research, Focuses On Cloud

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 11:52am MST by ScuttleMonkey

  superapecommando writes to share that Microsoft appears to be going all-out on research in the coming year, with a great focus on the cloud. They're supposedly planning to spend $9.5 billion in R&D; that's $3 billion more than the next-closest tech company. "'Especially in light of the tough difficult macroeconomic times that we're coming out of, we chose to really lean in and double down on our innovation,' [Microsoft COO Kevin] Turner said. Turner contended that Microsoft has more cloud services than any other company, ranging from its consumer email service to hosted enterprise products such as its Dynamics CRM (customer relationship management) system to its Azure cloud operating system. 'We're going to change and reinvent our company around leading in the cloud.'"

  

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  Web Browser Grand Prix

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 11:07am MST by ScuttleMonkey

  An anonymous reader writes "After seeing Opera's claim to 'Fastest Browser on Earth' after their most recent release, Tom's Hardware put Apple Safari 4.04, Google Chrome 4.0, Microsoft Internet Explorer 8, Mozilla Firefox 3.6, and Opera 10.50 through a gauntlet of speed tests and time trials to find out which Web browser is truly the fastest. How does your favorite land in the rankings?"

  

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  Vivek Kundra On US Government Inefficiency

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 10:24am MST by kdawson

  parkland writes "Federal CIO Vivek Kundra described some dismaying government inefficiencies in a speech on Thursday at the University of Washington's Evans School of Public Affairs in Seattle. It takes 160 days to process benefits for veterans, he said, 'because the Veteran's Administration is processing paperwork by passing manila folders from one desk to another.' Another example bound to make you grind your teeth is why it takes the Patent and Trademark Office 3 years to process a patent. 'One reason,' says Kundra, 'is because the USPTO receives these applications online, prints them out, and then someone manually rekeys the information into an antiquated system.'"

  

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  First Creation of Anti-Strange Hypernuclei

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 9:44am MST by kdawson

  runagate writes "Brookhaven National Laboratory has created a heretofore unknown form of matter. The matter we normally encounter, and are composed of, has nuclei of protons and neutrons that contain no strange quarks. It was known that anti-strange matter could exist, and using the Solenoidal Tracker at Brookhaven's RHIC, scientists detected a couple of dozen instances of antihypernuclei. The 'Z' axis of the Periodic Table has already been extended in the positive direction by the discovery of hypernuclei, but this new discovery extends it in the negative direction for this new type of 'strange' antimatter — which may exist in the core of collapsed stars and may provide insight into why our universe appears to be made almost solely of matter and not antimatter." The Register's coverage reproduces a helpful diagram.

  

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  Mariposa Botnet Authors Unlikely To See Jail Time

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 9:02am MST by kdawson

  krebsonsecurity writes "Three Spanish men were arrested last month for allegedly building an international network of more than 12 million hacked PCs that were used for everything from identity theft to spamming. But according to Spanish authorities and security experts who helped unravel the crime ring, the accused may very well never see the inside of a jail cell even if they are ultimately found guilty, due to insufficient cyber-crime legislation in Spain. 'It is almost impossible to be sent to prison for these kinds of crimes in Spain, where prison is mainly for serious crime cases,' said Captain Cesar Lorenzana, deputy head technology crime division of the Spanish Civil Guard. ... Spain is one of nearly three dozen countries that is a signatory to the Council of Europe's cybercrime treaty, but Spanish legislators have not yet ratified the treaty by passing anti-cybercrime laws that would bring its judicial system in line with the treaty's goals."

  

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  New Crossover Release With Improved Compatability

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 8:44am MST by kdawson

  solanum writes "On March 2nd Crossover 9.0 was released. CrossOver 9 features a new user interface that focuses on making installation of Windows software quicker and easier than previous versions. Another new feature is CrossOver's ability to download installation 'recipes' directly from CodeWeavers online Compatibility Database. 'If another CrossOver user has figured out how to use CrossOver to install a Windows application, they can upload that installation recipe to our database,' said Jeremy White, CodeWeavers chief executive officer. 'As we go forward, and build this online storehouse, CrossOver will begin to automatically install that same application for other users. This enables us to move closer to a world where CrossOver will begin to run the majority of Windows apps, and not just an officially supported subset. In other words, our diabolical plot for world domination is going exactly as planned,' he added. Early reviews and comments are positive, and my own experience is that many more Windows applications work in this new version than previously."

  

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  New Crossover Release With Improved Compatibility

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 8:44am MST by kdawson

  solanum writes "On March 2nd Crossover 9.0 was released. CrossOver 9 features a new user interface that focuses on making installation of Windows software quicker and easier than previous versions. Another new feature is CrossOver's ability to download installation 'recipes' directly from CodeWeavers online Compatibility Database. 'If another CrossOver user has figured out how to use CrossOver to install a Windows application, they can upload that installation recipe to our database,' said Jeremy White, CodeWeavers chief executive officer. 'As we go forward, and build this online storehouse, CrossOver will begin to automatically install that same application for other users. This enables us to move closer to a world where CrossOver will begin to run the majority of Windows apps, and not just an officially supported subset. In other words, our diabolical plot for world domination is going exactly as planned,' he added. Early reviews and comments are positive, and my own experience is that many more Windows applications work in this new version than previously."

  

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  There Is No Cyberwar

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 8:20am MST by kdawson

  crowfeather notes an interview with cybersecurity czar Howard Schmidt that Wired's Thread Level conducted this week. "Howard Schmidt, the new cybersecurity czar for the Obama administration, has a short answer for the drumbeat of rhetoric claiming the United States is caught up in a cyberwar that it is losing. 'There is no cyberwar,' Schmidt told Wired.com in a sit-down interview Wednesday at the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco. 'I think that is a terrible metaphor and I think that is a terrible concept,' Schmidt said. 'There are no winners in that environment.' Instead, Schmidt said the government needs to focus its cybersecurity efforts to fight online crime and espionage. His stance contradicts Michael McConnell, the former director of national intelligence who made headlines last week when he testified to Congress that the country was already in the midst of a cyberwar — and was losing it. ... There's been much ink spilled in recent years over the turf battles in D.C. over whether the NSA (representing the military) or DHS (on the civilian side) takes the lead role in cybersecurity. But... "I haven't seen that tension," Schmidt said. As for which will take the cybersecurity lead, Schmidt simply says it's a shared effort."

  

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  Web Copyright Crackdown On the Way

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 7:38am MST by kdawson

  Hugh Pickens writes "Journalist Alan D. Mutter reports on his blog 'Reflections of a Newsosaur' that a coalition of traditional and digital publishers is launching the first-ever concerted crackdown on copyright pirates on the Web. Initially targeting violators who use large numbers of intact articles, the first offending sites to be targeted will be those using 80% or more of copyrighted stories more than 10 times per month. In the first stage of a multi-step process, online publishers identified by Silicon Valley startup Attributor will be sent a letter informing them of the violations and urging them to enter into license agreements with the publishers whose content appears on their sites. In the second stage Attributor will ask hosting services to take down pirate sites. 'We are not going after past damages' from sites running unauthorized content says Jim Pitkow, the chief executive of Attributor. The emphasis, Pitkow says is 'to engage with publishers to bring them into compliance' by getting them to agree to pay license fees to copyright holders in the future. Offshore sites will not be immune from the crackdown: almost all of them depend on banner ads served by US-based services, and the DMCA requires the ad service to act against any violator. Attributor says it can interdict the revenue lifeline at any offending site in the world." One possible weakness in Attributor's business plan, unless they intend to violate the robots.txt convention: they find violators by crawling the Web.

  

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  The Arctic Is Leaking Methane

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 6:53am MST by kdawson

  registerShift and other readers sent in news that the Arctic Ocean seabed is leaking methane. "...climate experts familiar with the new research reported in Friday's issue of the journal Science that even though it does not suggest imminent climate catastrophe, it is important because of methane's role as a greenhouse gas. Although carbon dioxide is far more abundant and persistent in the atmosphere, ton for ton atmospheric methane traps at least 25 times as much heat. ... [One scientist] estimated that annual methane emissions from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf total about seven teragrams. (A teragram is 1.1 million tons.) By some estimates, global methane emissions total about 500 teragrams a year. ...about 40 percent is natural, including the decomposition of organic materials in wetlands and frozen wetlands like permafrost."

  

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  Real Settles Lawsuits, Will Stop Selling RealDVD

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 6:13am MST by timothy

  angry tapir writes "RealNetworks has agreed to pay $4.5 million and permanently stop selling its RealDVD software as part of a legal settlement with six Hollywood movie studios. The lawsuits date back to 2008 and Slashdot has previously discussed them. RealDVD is an application that lets people make copies of their DVDs."

  

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  New Call of Duty Titles Announced, Fired Devs Sue For Name

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 5:44am MST by Soulskill

  eldavojohn writes "Activision has announced new Call of Duty titles while fired Infinity Ward Developer leads Jason West and Vince Zampella sue them for the rights to the name. According to Activision, 'The company intends to expand the Call of Duty brand with the same focus seen in its Blizzard Entertainment business unit. This will include a focus on high-margin digital online content and further[ing] the brand as the leading action entertainment franchise in new geographies, new genres and with new digital business models.' Ars opines that Activision is set to over-saturate the market with tons of CoD titles similar to how it expertly brought down Guitar Hero."

  

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  New Material Sets Stage For All-Optical Computing

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 4:33am MST by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from the International Business Times: "Researchers have made a new material that can be used to guide waves of light, a breakthrough that could lead to ultra-fast computing. Georgia Tech scientists are using specially designed organic dyes that can process and redirect light without the need to be converted to electricity first. ... 'For this class of molecules, we can with a high degree of reliability predict where the molecules will have both large optical nonlinearities and low two-photon absorption,' said [Georgia Tech School of Chemistry professor Seth] Marder." According to the article, using an optical router could lead to transmission speeds as high as 2,000 gigabits per second, five times faster than current technology.

  

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  NVIDIA Driver Update Causing Video Cards To Overheat In Games

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 3:13am MST by Soulskill

  After a group of StarCraft II beta testers reported technical difficulties following the installation of NVIDIA driver update 196.75, Blizzard tech support found that the update introduced fan control problems that were causing video cards to overheat in 3D applications. "This means every single 3D application (i.e. games) running these drivers is going to be exposed to overheating and in some extreme cases it will cause video card, motherboard and/or processor damage. If said motherboard, processor or graphic card is not under warranty, some gamers are in serious trouble playing intensive games such as Prototype, World of Warcraft, Farcry 3, Crysis and many other games with realistic graphics." NVIDIA said they were investigating the problem, took down links to the new drivers, and advised users to revert to 196.21 until the problem can be fixed.

  

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  China's Human Flesh Search Engine

  Posted: March 5th, 2010, 2:06am MST by timothy

  Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times has an interesting article about Human-flesh search engines — renrou sousuo yinqing — that have become a phenomenon in China: they are a form of online vigilante justice in which Internet users hunt down and punish people who have attracted their wrath. The goal is to get the targets of a search fired from their jobs, shamed in front of their neighbors, or run out of town. It's crowd-sourced detective work, pursued online — with offline results. 'In the United States, traditional media are still playing the key role in setting the agenda for the public,' says Jin Liwen. 'But in China, you will see that a lot of hot topics, hot news or events actually originate from online discussions.' In one well known case, when a video appeared in China of a woman stomping a cat to death with the sharp point of her high heel, the human flesh search engine tracked the kitten killer's home to the town of Luobei in Heilongjiang Province, in the far northeast, and her name — Wang Jiao — was made public, as were her phone number and her employer. 'Wang Jiao was affected a lot,' says one Luobei resident. 'She left town and went somewhere else.' The kitten-killer case didn't just provide revenge; it helped turn the human-flesh search engine into a national phenomenon. Searches have also been directed against cheating spouses, corrupt government officials, amateur pornography makers, Chinese citizens who are perceived as unpatriotic, journalists who urge a moderate stance on Tibet and rich people who try to game the Chinese system."

  

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  Toyota Black Box Data Is More Closed Than Others'

  Posted: March 4th, 2010, 11:12pm MST by timothy

  wjr writes "Many cars these days contain black boxes that record information (speed, accelerator position, etc) and can preserve information in the case of an accident. Ford and Chrysler say that they use 'open systems' so anyone can read out the data; General Motors has licensed Bosch to produce a device capable of reading its cars' black boxes. On the other hand, Toyota has only a single laptop in the US capable of reading its cars' black boxes, and generally won't allow the data to be read without a court order. Honda seems to have a similar policy. This is emerging as an issue in the investigation into unintended acceleration."

  

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  Ubisoft's New DRM Cracked In One Day

  Posted: March 4th, 2010, 7:58pm MST by timothy

  Colonel Korn writes "Ubisoft's recent announcement that upcoming games would require a constant internet connection in order to play has been discussed at length on Slashdot ('The Awful Anti-Pirate System That Will Probably Work'). Many were of the opinion that this new, more demanding DRM would have effectiveness to match its inconvenience, at least financially justifying its use. Others assumed that it would be immediately cracked, as is usually the case, leaving the inconvenience for paying customers and resulting in a superior product for pirates. As usual, the latter group was right. Though Ubisoft won't yet admit it, Skid-Row managed to crack the new DRM less than a day after it was first released."

  

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  Apple Removes Wi-Fi Finders From App Store

  Posted: March 4th, 2010, 6:30pm MST by timothy

  jasonbrown writes "Apple on Thursday began removing another category of apps from its iPhone App Store. This time, it's not porn, it's Wi-Fi. Apple removed several Wi-Fi apps commonly referred to as stumblers, or apps that seek out available Wi-Fi networks near your location. According to a story on Cult of Mac, apps removed by Apple include WiFi-Where, WiFiFoFum, and yFy Network Finder."

  

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  How To Play Poker With Your Rock Band Drum Kit

  Posted: March 4th, 2010, 5:21pm MST by timothy

  SeanLind writes "After writing a similar article for converting your Rock Band guitar I got flooded with feedback and requests for a Drum Kit versions. So that's exactly what I did, three easy steps to converting your Rock Band drum kit into a wireless game controller, and using that to play online poker."

  

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  Charles Nesson Ruled Jointly Liable To Pay RIAA

  Posted: March 4th, 2010, 4:11pm MST by timothy

  eldavojohn writes "The highly anticipated Joel Tenenbaum trial ended in a disaster for Tenenbaum. But worse for his highly publicized lawyer, Charles Nesson, they are both liable for payment of the court's decision to the RIAA. Nesson's pro bono agreement with Tenenbaum may turn out to be a seriously expensive experiment for the Harvard Law Professor." As the Ars story points out, though, it's "some fees incurred by the RIAA during the trial" for which he'd be liable, not the whole judgment amount.

  

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  Venezuela Bans Hostile Videogames and Toys

  Posted: March 4th, 2010, 3:41pm MST by timothy

  An anonymous reader writes "In an effort to 'help improve child education and prevent misconduct,' the Venezuelan government began enforcing a law on March 3rd banning war videogames and toys, imposing a fine and 2.5 years in prison on the production, distribution, sale, hiring and use of video games and toys inciting violent behavior. Alberto Federico Ravell, former director of opposing news network Globovision, has already come on twitter denouncing the authorities for seizing imported Gameboy, Wii and PlayStation 3 consoles, due to considering them violent."

  

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  Where Android Beats the iPhone

  Posted: March 4th, 2010, 3:22pm MST by timothy

  snydeq writes "Peter Wayner provides a developer's comparison of Android and the iPhone and finds Android not only competitive but in fact a better choice than the iPhone for many developers, largely due to its Java foundation. 'While iPhone developers have found that one path to success is playing to our baser instincts (until Apple shuts them down), a number of Android applications are offering practical solutions that unlock the power of a phone that's really a Unix machine you can slip into your pocket,' Wayner writes, pointing out GScript and Remote DB as two powerful tools for developers to make rough but workable custom tools for Android. But the real gem is Java: 'The pure Java foundation of Android will be one of the biggest attractions for many businesses with Java programmers on the staff. Any Java developer familiar with Eclipse should be able to use Google's Android documentation to turn out a very basic application in just a few hours. Not only that, but all of the code from other Java programs will run on your Android phone — although it won't look pretty or run as fast as it does on multicore servers.'"

  

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  How MySpace Generates Enough Load To Test Itself

  Posted: March 4th, 2010, 2:34pm MST by timothy

  An anonymous reader points out this article about "...how a big site like MySpace uses thousands of cloud computing cores to do performance testing on its live site. There are some really great numbers in there from the performance tests, like generating 16GB/second of bandwidth and 77,000 hits/second during testing (not including the live traffic on the site at the time)."

  

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  Throttle Shared Users With OS X — Is It Possible?

  Posted: March 4th, 2010, 2:11pm MST by timothy

  whisper_jeff writes "I work in a design studio where the production director is also the owner's son (translation = he can do no wrong). He is fond of accessing a designer's computer via filesharing and working directly on files off of the designer's computers rather than transferring the files to his computer to work on them there. In so doing, he causes the designer's computer to grind to a near-halt as the harddrive is now tasked with his open/save requests along with whatever the designer is doing. Given that there is no way he's going to change his ways (since he doesn't see anything wrong with it...), I was wondering if there was a way to throttle a user's shared access to a computer (Mac OSX 10.5.8) so that his remote working would have minimal impact on our work. Google searches have revealed nothing helpful (maybe I should Bing it... :) so I was hoping someone with more technical expertise on Slashdot could offer a suggestion."

  

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  Typical Windows User Patches Every 5 Days

  Posted: March 4th, 2010, 1:47pm MST by timothy

  CWmike writes "The typical home user running Windows faces the 'unreasonable' task of patching software an average of every five days, security research company Secunia said on Thursday. 'It's completely unreasonable to expect users to master so many different patch mechanisms and spend so much time patching,' said Thomas Kristensen, the company's CSO. The result: Few consumers devote the time and attention necessary to stay atop the patching job, which leaves them open to attack. Secunia says that of the users who ran the company's Personal Software Inspector in the last week of January, half had 66 or more programs from 22 or more different vendors on their machines. ... Secunia has published a white paper (PDF) that details its findings."

  

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  Researchers Find Way To Zap RSA Algorithm

  Posted: March 4th, 2010, 1:02pm MST by timothy

  alphadogg writes "Three University of Michigan computer scientists say they have found a way to exploit a weakness in RSA security technology used to protect everything from media players to smartphones and e-commerce servers. RSA authentication is susceptible, they say, to changes in the voltage supply to a private key holder. While guessing the 1,000-plus digits of binary code in a private key would take unfathomable hours, the researchers say that by varying electric current to a secured computer using an inexpensive purpose-built device they were able to stress out the computer and figure out the 1,024-bit private key in about 100 hours – all without leaving a trace. The researchers in their paper outline how they made the attack (PDF) on a SPARC system running Linux."

  

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  Dead Pigs Used To Investigate Ocean's "Dead Zones"

  Posted: March 4th, 2010, 12:55pm MST by samzenpus

  timothy writes "As places to study what happens to corpses, the Atlantic Ocean is both much larger and much more specialized than the famous 'body farm' in Knoxville, TN. But for all kinds of good reasons, sending human bodies into Davy Jones' locker just to see where they float and how they bloat is unpopular. Pigs don't pay taxes, and more importantly, they don't vote. So Canadian scientists have taken to using them as human-body proxies, to study what happens when creatures of similar size and hairlessness (aka, us) end up 86ed and in the drink."

  

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  Window Pain

  Posted: March 4th, 2010, 12:16pm MST by timothy

  Frequent Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton contributes the following piece on trying to get some measure of satisfaction in the struggle against pop-up adds, writing "The most annoying thing about some pop-up ads, is that you have no way of knowing which ad-serving network served them or who the responsible parties are. Could we reduce the incidence of illegal or deceptive pop-up ads, by giving users an easier way to trace their origin and figure out where to send complaints? Here's one way to do it with a simple right-click." Read on for the rest.

  

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  IO Data Licenses Microsoft's "Linux Patents"

  Posted: March 4th, 2010, 11:29am MST by kdawson

  eldavojohn writes "The Japanese computer manuracturer IO Data is the latest in line to license Microsoft's so-called 'Linux patents,' following the likes of Novell, Samsung, and Amazon. Yes, even the press releases use the word 'Linux' to describe these patents. From the press release: 'Specifically, the patent covenants apply to I-O Data's network-attached storage devices and its routers, which run Linux. Although the details of the agreement have not been disclosed, the parties indicated that Microsoft is being compensated by I-O Data.'"

  

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  "Skinput" Turns Your Body Into Your I/O

  Posted: March 4th, 2010, 10:49am MST by kdawson

  kkleiner writes "Skinput is a system from Carnegie Mellon's Chris Harrison that monitors acoustic signals on your arm to translate gestures and taps into input commands. Just by touching different points on your arm, hand, or fingers you can tell your portable device to change volume, answer a call, or turn itself off. Even better, Harrison can couple Skinput with a pico projector so that you can see a graphic interface on your arm and use the acoustic signals to control it. The project is set to be presented at this year's SIGCHI conference in April, but you can check it out now in several video demonstrations."

  

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  Google Indexing In Near-Realtime

  Posted: March 4th, 2010, 9:58am MST by kdawson

  krou writes "ReadWriteWeb is covering Google's embrace of a system that would enable any Web publisher to 'automatically submit new content to Google for indexing within seconds of that content being published.' Google's Brett Slatkin is lead developer of PuSH, or PubSubHubbub, a real-time syndication protocol based on ATOM, where 'a publisher tells the world about a Hub that it will notify every time new content is published.' Subscribers then wait for the hub to notify them of the new content. Says RWW: 'If Google can implement an Indexing by PuSH program, it would ask every website to implement the technology and declare which Hub they push to at the top of each document, just like they declare where the RSS feeds they publish can be found. Then Google would subscribe to those PuSH feeds to discover new content when it's published. PuSH wouldn't likely replace crawling, in fact a crawl would be needed to discover PuSH feeds to subscribe to, but the real-time format would be used to augment Google's existing index.' PuSH is an open protocol, and Slatkin says that 'I am being told by my engineering bosses to openly promote this open approach even to our competitors.'"

  

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  Funeral Being Held Today For IE6

  Posted: March 4th, 2010, 9:44am MST by samzenpus

  An anonymous reader writes "More than 100 people, many of them dressed in black, are expected to gather around a coffin Thursday to say goodbye to an old friend. The deceased? Internet Explorer 6. The aging Web browser, survived by its descendants Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8, is being eulogized at a tongue-in-cheek 'funeral' hosted by Aten Design Group, a design firm in Denver, Colorado."

  

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  A Public Funded "Microsoft Shop?"

  Posted: March 4th, 2010, 9:09am MST by kdawson

  sammcj writes "I work at a public hospital in the computer / technical department and (amongst others) was recently outraged by an email that was sent around our department: '(XXXX) District Health Board — Information Services is strategically a Microsoft shop and when talking to staff / customers we are to support this strategy. I no longer want to see comments promoting other Operating Systems.' We have also been told to remove Firefox found on anyone's computer unless they have specific authorisation from management to have it installed under special circumstances. Now, I could somewhat understand this if I was working in a company that sold and promoted the use of Microsoft software for financial gain, but I work in the publicly / government funded health system. Several of the IT big-wigs at the DHB are seemingly blindly pro-Microsoft and seem all too quick to shrug off other, perhaps more efficient alternatives. As a taxpayer, I want nothing more than to see our health systems improve and run more efficiently. I am not foolish enough to say all our problems would be solved overnight by changing away from Microsoft's infrastructure, but I am convinced that if we took less than half the money we spend on licensing Microsoft's software alone and invested that in training users for an open source system, we would be far better off in the long run. I would very much like to hear Slashdot's ideas / opinions on this 'Strategic Direction' and the silencing of our technical opinions."

  

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  A Public Funded "Microsoft Shop?"

  Posted: March 4th, 2010, 9:09am MST by kdawson

  An anonymous reader writes "I work at a public hospital in the computer / technical department and (amongst others) was recently outraged by an email that was sent around our department: '(XXXX) District Health Board — Information Services is strategically a Microsoft shop and when talking to staff / customers we are to support this strategy. I no longer want to see comments promoting other Operating Systems.' We have also been told to remove Firefox found on anyone's computer unless they have specific authorisation from management to have it installed under special circumstances. Now, I could somewhat understand this if I was working in a company that sold and promoted the use of Microsoft software for financial gain, but I work in the publicly / government funded health system. Several of the IT big-wigs at the DHB are seemingly blindly pro-Microsoft and seem all too quick to shrug off other, perhaps more efficient alternatives. As a taxpayer, I want nothing more than to see our health systems improve and run more efficiently. I am not foolish enough to say all our problems would be solved overnight by changing away from Microsoft's infrastructure, but I am convinced that if we took less than half the money we spend on licensing Microsoft's software alone and invested that in training users for an open source system, we would be far better off in the long run. I would very much like to hear Slashdot's ideas / opinions on this 'Strategic Direction' and the silencing of our technical opinions."

  

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  Earliest "Writing" On 60,000-Year-Old Eggshells

  Posted: March 4th, 2010, 8:23am MST by kdawson

  New Scientist reports on research published in PNAS (abstract here) about what may be the earliest writing yet discovered, on eggshells dated to 60,000 years ago. "Since 1999, Pierre-Jean Texier of the University of Bordeaux, France, and his colleagues have uncovered 270 fragments of shell at the Diepkloof Rock Shelter in the Western Cape, South Africa. They show the same symbols are used over and over again, and the team say there are signs that the symbols evolved over 5,000 years. This long-term repetition is a hallmark of symbolic communication and a sign of modern human thinking, say the team. [Another researcher is quoted:] 'Judging from what we know about the evolution of art all over the world, there may have been many [written language] traditions that were born, lasted for some time, and then vanished. This may be one of them, most probably not the first and certainly not the last.'"

  

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  3D Graphics For Firefox, Webkit

  Posted: March 4th, 2010, 7:37am MST by kdawson

  angry tapir writes "A group of researchers plans to release a version of the Firefox browser that includes the built-in ability to view 3D graphics. They've integrated real-time ray tracing technology, called RT Fact, into Firefox and Webkit. Images are described using XML3D, and the browser can natively render the 3D scene." The browser will be released within a few weeks, the researchers say, and they are checking with the Mozilla Foundation about whether they can call it Firefox.

  

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  Why PyCon 2010's Conference Wi-Fi Didn't Melt Down

  Posted: March 4th, 2010, 6:46am MST by kdawson

  jafo writes "There's been a lot of teeth gnashing going on recently about broken wireless at conferences. We just wrapped up PyCon 2010, with around 600 (out of 1,000) attendees simultaneously accessing the volunteer-run network, and response has been fairly positive. 2.4GHz (802.11b/g) continues to be problematic, but most users were on 5.2GHz (using 802.11n) and associating at 130mbps, with a 100mbps link to the net (though after the fact we found that 35mbps would have sufficed). My PyCon 2010 wrap-up reveals all the secrets of how we did it, including pretty bandwidth and user graphs."

  

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  Bluetooth 4.0 To Reach Devices In Fourth Quarter

  Posted: March 4th, 2010, 5:57am MST by samzenpus

  angry tapir writes "The Bluetooth 4.0 wireless specification could start to appear in devices such as headsets, smartphones and PCs by the fourth quarter, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group. The new specification will be able to be used in lower-power devices than previous versions of the technology, including watches, pedometers, smart meters and other gadgets that run on coin-cell batteries."

  

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  DMCA Amendment Proposed For UK

  Posted: March 4th, 2010, 2:06am MST by samzenpus

  Grumbleduke writes "During today's debate in the UK's House of Lords on the much-criticized Digital Economy Bill, the unpopular Clause 17 (which would have allowed the government to alter copyright law much more easily than it currently can) was voted out in favor of a DMCA-style take-down system for websites and ISPs. The new amendment known as 120A sets up a system whereby a copyright owner could force an ISP to block certain websites who allegedly host or link to infringing material or face being taken before the High Court and made to pay the copyright owner's legal fees. This amendment was tabled by the Liberal Democrat party, which had so far been seen as the defenders of the internet and with the Conservative party supporting them. The UK's Pirate Party and Open Rights Group have both strongly criticized this new amendment."

  

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  Using Classical Music As a Form of Social Control

  Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 11:34pm MST by samzenpus

  cyberfringe writes "Classical music is being used increasingly in Great Britain as a tool for social control and a deterrent to bad behavior. One school district subjects badly behaving children to hours of Mozart in special detention. Unsurprisingly, some of these youth now find classical music unbearable. Recorded classical music is blared through speakers at bus stops, outside stores, train stations and elsewhere to drive away loitering youth. Apparently it works. Detentions are down, graffiti is reduced, and naughty youth flee because they find classical music repugnant."

  

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  Researchers Convert Mouth Movements Into Speech

  Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 9:17pm MST by samzenpus

  andylim writes "According to Cellular News, researchers at Germany's Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have developed a method for mobile phones to convert silent mouth movements into speech. As recombu.com points out, the 'potential for secret conversations just got huge.' You could pass the time by making phone calls from the cinema without disturbing anyone. In noisy places like bars and clubs you could make yourself heard without having to shout."

  

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  Ubuntu Gets a New Visual Identity

  Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 7:00pm MST by samzenpus

  buntcake writes "Canonical has launched a new visual identity for the Ubuntu Linux distribution. Ubuntu is shedding its previous brown look and adopting a more professional color scheme with purple and orange. The colors will be used in a new GNOME theme and boot splash for Ubuntu 10.04. According to updated design documents that were published in the Ubuntu wiki, 'light' is the underlying concept behind the new visual identity. It displaces the 'human' concept that has been part of Ubuntu's theming and brand vernacular for the past five years. Ubuntu community manager Jono Bacon has posted a screenshot and additional information."

  

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  Narus Develops Social Media Sleuth

  Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 5:16pm MST by samzenpus

  maximus1 writes "Narus is developing a new technology code-named Hone that can be used to identify anonymous users of social networks and Internet services. Hone can do some pretty 'scary' things, says Antonio Nucci, chief technology officer with Narus. Hone uses artificial intelligence to analyze e-mails and can link mails to different accounts, doing what Nucci calls topical analysis. 'It's going to go through a set of documents and automatically it's going to organize them in topics — I'm not talking about keywords as is done today, I'm talking about topics,' he said. That can't be done with today's technology, he said. 'If you search for fertilizers on Google ... it's going to come back with 6.5 million pages. Enjoy,' he said. 'If you want to search for non-farmers who are discussing fertilizer ... it's not even searchable.' Nucci will discuss Hone at the RSA Conference in San Francisco Friday."

  

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  Privacy With a 4096 Bit RSA Key — Offline, On Paper

  Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 4:03pm MST by timothy

  HavanaF writes "Online backup is practical, but can it offer any privacy? The Dutch security company Safeberg developed an Offline Private Key Protocol, with an asymmetric key scheme. The protocol demands that the private (decryption) key be stored away from the 'source' computer, which presumably is 'too vulnerable.' The catch is that the private key needs to be fairly large to be secure: a 4,096-bit RSA key should suffice for some years. But how to store an 800-character key offline? Safeberg introduces a machine readable paper key, with the 4k-bit key crammed in a giant 2D Datamatrix barcode. This video on key strength tells the story."

  

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  Long-Term Storage of Moderately Large Datasets?

  Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 3:18pm MST by timothy

  hawkeyeMI writes "I have a small scientific services company, and we end up generating fairly large datasets (2-3 TB) for each customer. We don't have to ship all of that, but we do need to keep some compressed archives. The best I can come up with right now is to buy some large hard drives, use software RAID in linux to make a RAID5 set out of them, and store them in a safe deposit box. I feel like there must be a better way for a small business, but despite some research into Blu-ray, I've not been able to find a good, cost-effective alternative. A tape library would be impractical at the present time. What do you recommend?"

  

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  North Korea's Own OS, Red Star

  Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 3:00pm MST by timothy

  klaasb writes "North Korea's self-developed computer operating system, named 'Red Star,' was brought to light for the first time by a Russian satellite broadcaster yesterday. North Korea's top IT experts began developing the Red Star in 2006, but its composition and operation mechanisms were unknown until the internet version of the Russia Today TV program featured the system, citing the blog of a Russian student who goes to the Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang."

  

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  Turn Your Roomba Into a Household Google Bot

  Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 2:36pm MST by timothy

  Wael Chatila writes "By adding an on-board computer and a camera on a Roomba, the Roomba can be used to index your home. As a bonus, you can also control the Roomba across an internet connection, and see the images from the camera — a spybot for you to check on your own home while you are out."

  

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  Freescale's Cheap Chip Could Mean Sub-$99 E-Readers

  Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 1:52pm MST by timothy

  eldavojohn writes "Last week, Freescale Semiconductor announced their i.MX508 chip and a few days ago released a rather bland and boring announcement that it's available. But there was at least one interesting line from that press release, 'The i.MX508 applications processor is expected to be priced at less than $10 (USD) in quantities greater than 250K units.' Yes, less than ten dollars. This sparked a wave of articles detailing how this new chip will allow the sub-$99 e-reader to emerge and according to market research, consumers are thirsty for something much more affordable than the Kindle."

  

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  The Computer That Can Read Your Mind

  Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 1:09pm MST by timothy

  magacious writes "Gtec has showcased a computer that can read your mind over at the CeBIT trade show in Germany. Designed primarily to help those who can't write or speak, the system makes use of a skull cap and wireless technology to transform brain waves into letters. It's the first patient-ready computer-brain interface, according to its Austrian makers. It takes around 30 seconds per letter for the computer to recognise what you're saying the first time you use it, according to Gtec, but this improves vastly with practice. '"One second per letter is very tough," Gtec's Engelbert Grunbacher said, adding users can usually easily get to five or 10 letters per minute. "You learn to be relaxed, focused. You improve."' It might look quite wacky (pictures here) and at €9,000 the system is not cheap, but it could help enhance the lives of many people who have a great deal to say but no real way of saying it."

  

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  Ubuntu Desktop In the Cloud

  Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 12:41pm MST by timothy

  jimjimovich writes "One new feature in Ubuntu 10.04 that caught my attention is the Desktop in the Cloud project. Ubuntu already has great EC2 support, and it's getting even better. Now you can launch Ubuntu Desktop instances on EC2 and connect to them with an NX client."

  

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  Technical Objections To the Ogg Container Format

  Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 12:25pm MST by timothy

  E1ven writes "The Ogg container format is being promoted by the Xiph Foundation for use with its Vorbis and Theora codecs. Unfortunately, a number of technical shortcomings in the format render it ill-suited to most, if not all, use cases. This article examines the most severe of these flaws."

  

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  How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing Music

  Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 11:08am MST by Soulskill

  mbone writes "Ever wonder how Jimi Hendrix would cover Lady Gaga? Whether you do or not [I'm guessing not], you may be about to find out. Writing for Wired, Eliot Van Buskirk describes North Carolina's Zenph Sound Innovations, which takes existing recordings of musicians (deceased, for now) and models their 'musical personalities' to create new recordings, apparently to critical acclaim (PDF). The company has raised $10.7 million in funding to pursue their business plan, and hopes to branch out into, among other things, software that would let musicians jam with virtual versions of famous musicians. This work unites music with the very similar trend going on in the movies — Tron 2.0, for example, will clone the young Jeff Bridges. If this goes on, will the major labels and studios actually need musicians and actors? In the future, it could be harder to make money playing guitar with all of the competition from dead or retired artists."

  

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  Cross-Platform Mobile Gaming Gaining Traction

  Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 10:41am MST by Soulskill

  andylim writes "Several mobile gaming companies are developing cross-platform multiplayer games allowing Android and iPhone users, for example, to play games against each other. Last month touchArcade reported on a cross-platform baseball game developed by Com2Us called Homerun Battle 3D. Unlike turn-based multiplayer mobile games, Homerun Battle 3D allows players to compete against each other instantly, but you don't see the other player — instead you only get to see your competitor's score being updated. Pushing cross-platform multiplayer games even further, a company called Bulky Pix has created a table-football-style game that displays the action as it happens — both players see the ball moving around. This hopefully suggests that cross-platform, multiplayer mobile shooters aren't far behind."

  

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  Bloggers Now Eligible For Press Passes In NYC

  Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 10:25am MST by Soulskill

  RobotRunAmok writes "The New York City Police Department announced Tuesday that bloggers and others who publish on the Web will now be eligible for press credentials. The move comes as a result of a lawsuit filed in 2008 by three Web journalists who were denied press passes. In New York, journalists with press passes are typically allowed to cross police barricades at public events. 'Events that will qualify include city-sponsored activity — like a press conference or parade — as well as emergencies where the city has set up do-not-cross lines. The proposal also allows inexperienced journalists to obtain single-use press passes. Longtime civil rights lawyer Norman Siegel, who represented the journalists who sued, says the city will now decide who a journalist is by looking at the type of work they do, and not the organization they write for.'"

  

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  Portal Update Hints At New Game

  Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 9:43am MST by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "It appears Valve has begun another ARG (Alternate Reality Game) similar to the one that led up to the release of the original Portal game. A recent Portal update unlocked a new achievement which has uncovered various hidden images and sounds containing references to the Portal and Half-Life universe. Many believe this to be part of the run-up to the announcement of Portal 2 and/or the next installment of the Half-Life series. A thread on the Steam forums has already reached over 1 million views as people piece together the information. Another thread summarizes the information found so far. Based on clues from the ARG, some are speculating an announcement at the 2010 Game Developers Conference where Valve's co-founder Gabe Newell is to receive this year's Pioneer Award."

  

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  Gamma Ray Mystery Reestablished By Fermi Telescope

  Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 9:23am MST by Soulskill

  eldavojohn writes "New observations from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope reveal that our assumptions about the 'fog' of gamma rays in our universe are not entirely explained by black hole-powered jets emanating from active galaxies — as we previously hypothesized. For now, the researchers are representing the source of unaccounted gamma rays with a dragon (as in 'here be') symbol. A researcher explained that they are certain about this, given Fermi's observations: 'Active galaxies can explain less than 30 percent of the extragalactic gamma-ray background Fermi sees. That leaves a lot of room for scientific discovery as we puzzle out what else may be responsible.' And so we reopen the chapter on background gamma-rays in the science textbooks and hope this eventually sheds even more light on other mysteries of space — like star formation and dark matter."

  

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  Western Digital Launches First SSD

  Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 9:01am MST by Soulskill

  Vigile writes "The solid state disk market keeps getting more crowded, but the Western Digital SiliconEdge Blue SSD marks the first offering from a player that currently dominates the market of traditional spindle-based hard drives. It was a year ago this month that WD purchased SiliconSystems for $65m, a small, enterprise-level SSD vendor that developed its own storage controller. Western Digital obviously made the move to prepare the company for the inevitable situation it finds itself in today: solid state has surpassed traditional media in performance and will likely soon become the mainstream storage choice for computers. PC Perspective has put the first consumer-level SSD option from one of the kings of HDDs through the wringer and found the drive to be a solid first offering, with performance on par with the some of the better solutions in the market while not quite fast enough to take away the top seatings from Intel and others. Western Digital has seen the writing on the wall; the only question is when the other players in the hard drive market will as well." Hot Hardware ran their own series of tests, coming to a similar conclusion: "There is no question the SiliconEdge Blue doesn't light up the benchmarks like some of the more recent SSDs we've tested, but it's a solid product from a well-respected brand name storage company."

  

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  White House Declassifies Outline of Cybersecurity Plans

  Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 8:20am MST by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "The Obama administration on Tuesday declassified part of the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative created during the Bush administration, outlining offensive and defensive strategies for protecting information networks. The initiative was originally intended to unify efforts of a number of government agencies into a comprehensive strategy to protect the nation's computer networks. 'One area in which the government did officially disclose new details was Einstein 3, a program to protect civilian government systems from intrusion by deploying sensors on the networks of private telecommunications companies. For the first time, the government disclosed officially that the program would use technology developed by the NSA, the nation's largest intelligence agency. It also said that the Department of Homeland Security, which would run the program, would share malicious code data with the NSA but not the content of communications, such as e-mails.'"

  

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  Hedge Fund Offers $2 Billion For Novell

  Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 7:38am MST by Soulskill

  CWmike writes "A hedge fund that is already one of Novell's largest shareholders offered on Tuesday to acquire the struggling, cash-rich enterprise software maker for $2 billion. The unsolicited offer, from New York-based Elliot Associates L.P., is for $5.75 per share in cash, a dollar per share more than Novell's closing price Tuesday of $4.75. The offer caused Novell's stock to leap 29% to $6.15 in after-hours trading. Because Novell is so cash-rich — it had $991 million in cash and equivalents at the end of January (PDF) — Elliott says the deal values Novell as an enterprise alone at about $1 billion."

  

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  Google Asks US For WTO Block On China Censorship

  Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 6:57am MST by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "Google is asking the US government to petition the World Trade Organization to recognize China's censorship as an unfair barrier to trade. The US Trade Representative is reviewing their petition to see if they can prove that China's rules discriminate against foreign competition. At least it's something worthwhile for the US Trade Reps to do, rather than secretly negotiating ACTA."

  

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  Mariposa Botnet Beheaded

  Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 6:13am MST by kdawson

  northernboy and many other readers sent news of the beheading of the Mariposa botnet with three arrests in Spain. "Defense Intelligence of Ottawa working with ISPs and Spanish authorities have taken down yet another > 12M PC botnet, called Mariposa. The three top-level operators are in custody, but remain anonymous under Spanish law (how quaint: apparently in Spain, the accused have some right to privacy). AP is claiming that the botnet included systems in roughly half of the Fortune 1000 companies, scattered over 190 countries. Interesting details: none of the three principals has a prior criminal record. Although apparently hardworking, they are not uber-hackers, but rather had connections to the Spanish mafia, which apparently helped to equip them. At the time of arrest, they were not showing signs of their significant new income level. From the article: 'Chris Davis, CEO of Ottawa-based Defence Intelligence, said he noticed the infections when they appeared on networks of some of his firm's clients, including pharmaceutical companies and banks. It wasn't until several months later that he realized the infections were part of something much bigger. After seeing that some of the servers used to control computers in the botnet were located in Spain, Davis and researchers from the Georgia Tech Information Security Center joined with software firm Panda Security, which is headquartered in Bilbao, Spain. The investigators caught a few lucky breaks. For one, the suspects used Internet services that wound up cooperating with investigators. That isn't always the case.'"

  

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  BBC To Make Deep Cuts In Internet Services

  Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 4:31am MST by kdawson

  Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that the BBC has yielded to critics of its aggressive expansion, and is planning to make sweeping cuts in spending on its Web site and other digital operations. Members of the Conservative Party, which is expected to make electoral gains at the expense of the governing Labor Party, have called for the BBC to be reined in and last year James Murdoch criticized the BBC for providing 'free news' on the internet, making it 'incredibly hard for private news organizations to ask people to pay for their news.' Mark Thompson, director-general of the BBC, said 'After years of expansion of our services in the UK, we are proposing some reductions.' The BBC is proposing a 25 percent reduction in its spending on the Web, as well as the closure of several digital radio stations and a reduction in outlays on US television shows. The Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph and Theatre Union, which represents thousands of workers at the BBC, says that instead of appeasing critics, the proposed cuts could backfire. 'The BBC will not secure the politicians' favor with these proposals and nor will the corporation appease the commercial sector, which will see what the BBC is prepared to sacrifice and will pile on the pressure for more cuts,' says Gerry Morrissey, general secretary of the union."

  

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  Write Bits Directly Onto a Hard Drive Platter?

  Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 3:18am MST by kdawson

  kidcharles writes "I'm working on a project that requires writing bits to a magnetic hard drive platter in a completely controlled fashion. I need to be able to control exactly where 1s and 0s will appear physically on the platter. Normally when data is written to a drive the actual bits that get written are determined by the file system being used, as modified by whatever kind of error handling the drive itself is using (e.g. Reed-Solomon). All of the modern innovations in file systems and error handling are great for reliable and efficient data storage, but they are making my particular task quite daunting. My question for Slashdot: is there a way to get down to the 'bare metal' and write these bits? Any good utilities out there to do this? Obviously a free and open source solution would be preferable, but I'm open to anything at this point."

  

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  Printing Replacement Body Parts

  Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 1:49am MST by kdawson

  Deep Penguin sends in a piece that appeared in The Economist a couple of weeks back about a developing technology to "print" body parts for transplant. "A US and an Australian company have developed the $200,000 machine, which works by depositing stem cells and a 'sugar-based hydrogel' scaffolding material. (The stem cells are harvested from a transplant patient's own fat and bone marrow, to avoid rejection down the line.) The companies are Organovo, from San Diego, specializing in regenerative medicine, and Invetech, an engineering and automation firm in Melbourne, Australia. The initial targets are skin, muscle, and 'short stretches of blood vessels,' which they hope to have available for human implantation within five years. Down the line, they expect the technology could even print directly into the body, bypassing the in-vitro portion of the current process."

  

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  $1M Prize For Finding Cause of Unintended Acceleration

  Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 12:22am MST by kdawson

  phantomfive writes "Edmunds Auto has announced that it will be offering a $1 million prize to anyone who can find the cause of unintended acceleration. As Wikipedia notes, this is a problem that has plagued not only Toyota, but also Audi and other manufacturers. Consumer Reports has some suggestions all automakers can implement to solve this problem, including requiring brakes to be strong enough to stop the car even when the accelerator is floored."

  

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  Officials Sue Couple Who Removed Their Lawn

  Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 10:39pm MST by kdawson

  Hugh Pickens writes "The LA Times reports that Orange County officials are locked in a legal battle with a couple accused of violating city ordinances for replacing the grass on their lawn with wood chips and drought-tolerant plants, reducing their water usage from 299,221 gallons in 2007 to 58,348 gallons in 2009. The dispute began two years ago, when Quan and Angelina Ha tore out the grass in their front yard. In drought-plagued Southern California, the couple said, the lush grass had been soaking up tens of thousands of gallons of water — and hundreds of dollars — each year. 'We've got a newborn, so we want to start worrying about her future,' said Quan Ha, an information technology manager for Kelley Blue Book. But city officials told the Has they were violating several city laws that require that 40% of residential yards to be landscaped predominantly with live plants. Last summer, the couple tried to appease the city by building a fence around the yard and planting drought-tolerant greenery — lavender, rosemary, horsetail, and pittosporum, among others. But according to the city, their landscaping still did not comply with city standards. At the end of January, the Has received a letter saying they had been charged with a misdemeanor violation and must appear in court. The couple could face a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine for their grass-free, eco-friendly landscaping scheme. 'It's just funny that we pay our taxes to the city and the city is now prosecuting us with our own money,' says Quan Ha."

  

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  Terry Childs's Slow Road To Justice

  Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 9:21pm MST by kdawson

  snydeq writes "Deep End's Paul Venezia provides an update on the City of San Francisco's trial against IT admin Terry Childs, which — at eight weeks and counting — hasn't even seen the defense begin to present its case. The main spotlight thus far has been on the testimony of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. 'Many articles about this case have pounced on the fact that after Childs gave the passwords to the mayor, they couldn't immediately be used. Most of these pieces chalk this up to some kind of secondary infraction on Childs's part,' Venezia writes. 'Just because you give someone a password doesn't mean that person knows how to use it. Childs's security measures would have included access lists that blocked attempted logins from non-specified IP addresses or subnets. In short, it was nothing out of the ordinary if you know anything about network security.' But while the lack of technical expertise in the case is troubling, encouraging is the fact that the San Francisco Chronicle's 'breathless piece reporting on the mayor's testimony' drew comments 10-to-1 in Childs's favor, which may indicate that 'public opinion of this case has tilted in favor of the defense,' Venezia writes. Of course, 'if [the trial] drags into summer, Childs will have the dubious honor of being held in jail for two full years.' This for a man who 'ultimately protected the [City's] network until the bitter end.'"

  

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  Tethering Is Exhilarating (With the Nexus One)

  Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 7:20pm MST by kdawson

  timothy found this link (hat-tip to Tim O'Reilly) to a paean to the joys of tethering. "In a short post, Steve Souders explores the current state of tethering 3G connections via iPhone (on which he basically gives up, for the perfectly decent reason of not wanting to jailbreak his iPhone) and the Nexus One, with which he has great success. His writeup serves as a micro-tutorial ('use PdaNet's Android app') as well as an endorsement."

  

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  Microsoft Says, Don't Press the F1 Key In XP

  Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 5:22pm MST by kdawson

  Ian Lamont writes "Microsoft has issued a security advisory warning users not to press the F1 key in Windows XP, owing to an unpatched bug in VBScript discovered by Polish researcher Maurycy Prodeus. The security advisory says that the vulnerability relates to the way VBScript interacts with Windows Help files when using Internet Explorer, and could be triggered by a user pressing the F1 key after visiting a malicious Web site using a specially crafted dialog box."

  

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  Netflix Gauging Interest In an iPhone App

  Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 4:36pm MST by kdawson

  gollum123 writes "A new survey sent out to Netflix subscribers indicates that the iPhone might be the next device that its streaming service rolls out on in the coming months. (The NY Times credits Hacking Netflix for the tip.) According to a tip sent to Hacking Netflix, the subscription video company is now asking users how likely they would be to use an iPhone app to view movies via its online streaming service. According to the survey, an iPhone app would give users all the same functionality that they have when streaming on a PC or other device, including all the same movies and TV shows without advertisements or trailers. If the app is rolled out, the ability to watch on the Apple mobile device would be offered at no additional charge to existing Netflix subscribers. There is good news for AT&T implied in the survey questions: it appears that the app would require users to be connected to a Wi-Fi network."

  

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  A Second Lessig Fair-Use Video Is Suppressed By WMG

  Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 3:48pm MST by kdawson

  Bios_Hakr points out an ironic use of the DMCA: for the second time, a video tutorial on fair use that Larry Lessig uploaded to YouTube has been muzzled. This time the sound has been pulled from the video; last time the video was taken off of YouTube. (Video and sound for the new "webside chat" can be experienced together on BlipTV.) Both times, Warner Music Group was the party holding copyright on a song that Lessig used in an unarguably fair-use manner. TechDirt is careful not to assume that an actual DMCA takedown notice was issued, on the likelihood that Google's automatic copyright-violation detectors did the deed. "The unintended consequences of asking tool providers [e.g., Google] to judge what is and what is not copyright infringement lead to tremendous problems with companies shooting first and asking questions later. They are silencing speech, on the threat that it might infringe on copyright. This is backwards. We live in a country that is supposed to cherish free speech, not stifle it in case it harms the business model of a company. We live in a country that is supposed to encourage the free expression of ideas — not lock it up and take it down because one company doesn't know how to adapt its business model. We should never be silencing videos because they might infringe on copyright."

  

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  Microsoft VP Suggests 'Net Tax To Clean Computers

  Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 3:05pm MST by kdawson

  Ian Lamont writes "Microsoft's Vice President for Trustworthy Computing, Scott Charney, speaking at the RSA conference in San Francisco, has floated an interesting proposal to deal with infected computers: Approach the problem of dealing with malware infections like the healthcare industry, and consider using 'general taxation' to pay for inspection and quarantine. Using taxes to deal with online criminal activity is not a new idea, as demonstrated by last year's Louisiana House vote to levy a monthly surcharge on Internet access to deal with online baddies."

  

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  New "Spear Phishing" Attacks Target IT Admins

  Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 2:18pm MST by kdawson

  snydeq writes "A new breed of 'spear phishing' aimed at IT admins is making the rounds. The emails, containing no obvious malicious links, are fooling even the savviest of users into opening up holes in their company's network defenses. The authentic-looking emails, which often include the admin's complete name or refer to a real project they are working on, are the product of tactical research or database hacks and appear as if having been sent by the company's hosting provider. 'In each case, the victim remembered getting a similar sort of email message when they first signed on with a service and, thus, thought the bogus message was legitimate — especially because their cloud/hosting providers keep bragging about all the new data centers they're continuing to bring online.' The phishing messages often include instructions for opening up mail servers to enable spam relaying, to disable their host-based firewalls, and to open up unprotected network shares. Certainly fodder for some bone-headed mistakes on the part of admins, the new attack 'makes the old days of hoax messages that caused users to delete legitimate operating system files seem relatively harmless.'"

  

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  SCO Zombie McBride's New Plan For World Litigation

  Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 1:32pm MST by kdawson

  eldavojohn writes "Years after you thought it was all over, Groklaw is reporting that Darl McBride (ex-CEO of SCO) has formed a new company that is buying SCO's mobile business for peanuts — but he's also going to get 'certain Intellectual Property' with the deal. You may recall that McBride was the brains behind the Linux lawsuits that SCO launched and it appears he may be orchestrating an exit route where he escapes with some IP intact, in order to wreak havoc once again. Hopefully this is the part at the end of the movie where the zombie comes back to life one last time only to have the hero deliver the final final blow. When this news broke upon the investment world, SCO's stock skyrocketed a blistering 11%, bringing it up seven cents to a full seventy cents — a level which it has not achieved since 2007."

  

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  Matt Asay Answers Your Questions About Ubuntu and Canonical

  Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 12:40pm MST by kdawson

  A couple of weeks ago you posed some questions for Matt Asay, who recently moved into the COO role at Canonical. Click below to read his answers.

  

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  Scientists Discover Booze That Won't Give You a Hangover

  Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 11:58am MST by samzenpus

  Kwang-il Kwon and Hye Gwang Jeong of Chungnam National University have discovered that drinking alcohol with oxygen bubbles added leads to fewer hangovers and a shorter sobering up time. People drinking the bubbly booze sobered up 20-30 minutes faster and had less severe and fewer hangovers than people who drank the non-fizzy stuff. Kwon said: "The oxygen-enriched alcohol beverage reduces plasma alcohol concentrations faster than a normal dissolved-oxygen alcohol beverage does. This could provide both clinical and real-life significance. The oxygen-enriched alcohol beverage would allow individuals to become sober faster, and reduce the side effects of acetaldehyde without a significant difference in alcohol's effects. Furthermore, the reduced time to a lower BAC may reduce alcohol-related accidents."

  

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  Detecting Anonymously Registered Domains

  Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 11:51am MST by kdawson

  Spamresource.com has up a piece describing a new service that could be useful in evaluating the reputation of sites you deal with — anonwhois.org returns information on domains registered anonymously. It provides a DNSBL-style service that "is not a blacklist and wasn't meant to be used for outright rejection of mail." Only 619,000 domains are listed so far, but more are added as they are queried, so the database will grow more complete. Anonwhois.org seems to be a sister site to Spam Eating Monkey.

  

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  Passage of Time Solves PS3 Glitch

  Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 11:27am MST by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "A quick update on the widespread PlayStation 3 glitch we discussed recently: as of last night (Monday, March 1st) the problem has resolved itself. I powered up my PS3 to find the clock was set to April 29th, 2020, but once I went into the system menu and set the date and time via the internet I got an accurate date. That seems to be the test of whether your PS3 is 'fixed' or not; Sony says you should be all set."

  

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  The Role of Human Culture In Natural Selection

  Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 11:05am MST by Soulskill

  gollum123 writes with this excerpt from the NY Times: "... for the last 20,000 years or so, people have inadvertently been shaping their own evolution. The force is human culture, broadly defined as any learned behavior, including technology. The evidence of its activity is the more surprising because culture has long seemed to play just the opposite role. Biologists have seen it as a shield that protects people from the full force of other selective pressures, since clothes and shelter dull the bite of cold and farming helps build surpluses to ride out famine. Because of this buffering action, culture was thought to have blunted the rate of human evolution, or even brought it to a halt, in the distant past. Many biologists are now seeing the role of culture in a quite different light. Although it does shield people from other forces, culture itself seems to be a powerful force of natural selection. People adapt genetically to sustained cultural changes, like new diets. And this interaction works more quickly than other selective forces, 'leading some practitioners to argue that gene-culture co-evolution could be the dominant mode of human evolution.'"

  

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  Infinity Ward Lead Developers Axed Unexpectedly

  Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 10:26am MST by Soulskill

  RogueyWon writes "Kotaku is reporting that Infinity Ward, the development studio behind Modern Warfare 2, has been at the center of strange events recently. Jason West and Vince Zampella, two lead developers, have been fired by parent company Activision for 'breaches of contract and insubordination.' Speculation is rife as to the reasons behind this; following Modern Warfare 2's spectacular sales figures, it seems unlikely that the studio's performance could be to blame."

  

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  Federal Deadline Hobbling eHealth IT Rollout

  Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 10:07am MST by Soulskill

  Lucas123 writes "A federal deadline that begins next year and requires hospitals to prove they're meaningfully using electronic health records will lead to technical problems and data errors affecting patient care, say politicians and top IT professionals responsible for the deployments. Physicians and hospitals have until the end of 2011 to receive the maximum federal incentive monies to deploy the technology. If not deployed by 2015, they face penalties through cuts in Medicare reimbursements. 'I think we have nontechnology people making decisions about technology,' said Gregg Veltri, CIO at Denver Health. 'I wonder if anybody understands the reality of IT systems and how complex they are, especially when they're integrated together. You're going to sacrifice quality if you increase the speed [of the rollout].'"

  

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  Apple Sues HTC For 20 Patent Violations In Phones

  Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 9:45am MST by Soulskill

  eldavojohn writes "Taiwanese HTC is being sued by Apple for 20 patents regarding the many phones HTC manufactures. Steve Jobs was quoted as saying, 'We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We've decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.' Apple has similar patent litigation with Nokia and may be trying to scare the rest of the industry into licensing patents similar to the Microsoft-Novell and Microsoft-Amazon deals regarding patents covering Linux functionality."

  

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  Over Half of Software Fails First Security Tests

  Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 9:02am MST by Soulskill

  An anonymous reader writes "Even with all of the emphasis on writing software with security in mind, most software applications remain riddled with security holes, according to a new report released today about the actual security quality of all types of software. Close to 60 percent of the applications tested by application security company Veracode in the past year-and-a-half failed to achieve a successful rating in their first round of testing. And this data is based on software developers who took the time and effort to have their code tested — who knows about the others." Reader sgtrock pointed out another interesting snippet from the article: "'The conventional wisdom is that open source is risky. But open source was no worse than commercial software upon first submission. That's encouraging,' Oberg says. And it was the quickest to remediate any flaws: 'It took about 30 days to remediate open-source software, and much longer for commercial and internal projects,' he says."

  

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  NASA Estimates 600 Million Metric Tons of Water Ice At Moon's North Pole

  Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 8:20am MST by Soulskill

  After analyzing data from a radar device aboard last year's Indian Chandrayaan-1 mission to the Moon, NASA scientists have found what they estimate to be 600 million metric tons of water ice in craters around the Moon's north pole. "Numerous craters near the poles of the Moon have interiors that are in permanent sun shadow. These areas are very cold and water ice is stable there essentially indefinitely. Fresh craters show high degrees of surface roughness (high circular polarization ratio) both inside and outside the crater rim, caused by sharp rocks and block fields that are distributed over the entire crater area. However, Mini-SAR has found craters near the north pole that have high CPR inside, but not outside their rims. This relation suggests that the high CPR is not caused by roughness, but by some material that is restricted within the interiors of these craters. We interpret this relation as consistent with water ice present in these craters. The ice must be relatively pure and at least a couple of meters thick to give this signature."

  

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  New Chrome Beta Adds Privacy Controls, Translation Option

  Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 7:39am MST by Soulskill

  billandad writes "Anyone would think the timing was deliberate; just as Microsoft is forced into giving users the option to switch from IE via the browser ballot screen, so Google introduces a new Chrome beta with enhanced privacy features to chisel away at Microsoft's market share. '... you can control how browser cookies, images, JavaScript, plug-ins, and pop-ups are handled on a site-by-site basis. For example, you can set up cookie rules to allow cookies specifically only for sites that you trust, and block cookies from untrusted sites.' The new beta also adds language detection, and will prompt the user to translate a page if it's written in a foreign tongue."

  

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  German Data Retention Law Ruled Unconstitutional

  Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 6:56am MST by Soulskill

  mseeger writes "The German Federal Constitutional Court has ruled the country's current data retention law unconstitutional. All stored telephone and email communication data, previously kept for six months in case it was needed by law enforcement, now must be deleted as soon as possible. The court criticized the lack of data security and insufficient restrictions for access to the data. The president of the court said continuing to retain the data would 'cause a diffusely threatening feeling of being under observation that can diminish an unprejudiced perception of one's basic rights in many areas.' While it doesn't disallow data retention in general, the imposed restriction demands a complete reworking of the law." An anonymous reader contributes the Court's press release and more information on the ruling, both in German.

  

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  Recovering Data From Noise

  Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 6:14am MST by kdawson

  An anonymous reader tips an account up at Wired of a hot new field of mathematics and applied algorithm research called "compressed sensing" that takes advantage of the mathematical concept of sparsity to recreate images or other datasets from noisy, incomplete inputs. "[The inventor of CS, Emmanuel] Candès can envision a long list of applications based on what he and his colleagues have accomplished. He sees, for example, a future in which the technique is used in more than MRI machines. Digital cameras, he explains, gather huge amounts of information and then compress the images. But compression, at least if CS is available, is a gigantic waste. If your camera is going to record a vast amount of data only to throw away 90 percent of it when you compress, why not just save battery power and memory and record 90 percent less data in the first place? ... The ability to gather meaningful data from tiny samples of information is also enticing to the military."

  

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  Scalpers Earned $25M Gaming Online Ticket Sellers

  Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 3:23am MST by kdawson

  SeattleGameboy writes "An indictment has been issued for online ticket brokers known as 'Wiseguy Tickets and Seats of San Francisco.' From 2002 to 2009, they used bots, server farms, and CAPTCHA hacking to buy vast number of premium tickets (Springsteen, Miley Cyrus, NFL, MLB playoffs, etc.) and made $25 million in profits. 'They wrote a script that impersonated users trying to access Facebook, and downloaded hundreds of thousands of possible CAPTCHA challenges from reCAPTCHA. They identified the file ID of each CAPTCHA challenge and created a database of CAPTCHA "answers" to correspond to each ID. The bot would then identify the file ID of a challenge at Ticketmaster and feed back the corresponding answer. The bot also mimicked human behavior by occasionally making mistakes in typing the answer, the authorities said.' I guess you can break any system like CAPTCHA if you want it badly enough."

  

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  UK Police Promise Not To Retain DNA Data, But Do Anyway

  Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 12:25am MST by kdawson

  redalien writes "In 2008 I invited two policemen into my home and voluntarily gave them a DNA and fingerprint sample to help with a murder investigation, as they'd promised it would only be used for that investigation. I was never under any suspicion and could just as easily have said no. Almost a year after the investigation closed they have now confirmed that they've retained my samples and at my request have begun an investigation to see if there are sufficient 'exceptional circumstances' to remove them. I'm not the only one who was told samples would be removed, so if you've had such a promise from the police I recommend contacting their data protection registrar immediately."

  

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  New I/O Standard Bids To Replace Mini PCI Express

  Posted: March 1st, 2010, 10:58pm MST by kdawson

  DeviceGuru writes "LinuxDevices reports that a group of companies today unveiled — and demonstrated products based on — a tiny new PCI Express expansion standard. Although it's somewhat larger than the PCI Express Mini Card, the tiny new 43mm x 65mm FeaturePak card's high density 230-pin edgecard connector provides twice the number of PCI Express and USB 2.0 channels to the host computer, plus 100 lines dedicated to general purpose I/O, of which 34 signal pairs are implemented with enhanced isolation for use in applications such as gigabit Ethernet or high-precision analog I/O. While FeaturePaks will certainly be used in all sorts of embedded devices (medical instruments, test equipment, etc.), the tiny cards could also be used for developing configurable consumer devices, for example to add an embedded firewall/router or security processor to laptop or notebook computers, or for modular functionality in TV set-top-boxes and Internet edge devices." The president of Diamond Systems, which invented the new card, said "Following the FeaturePak initiative's initial launch, we intend to turn the FeaturePak specification, trademark, and logo over to a suitable standards organization so it can become an industry-wide, open-architecture, embedded standard" (but to use the logo you have to join the organization).

  

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  Chilean Earthquake Shortened Earth's Day

  Posted: March 1st, 2010, 9:30pm MST by kdawson

  ailnlv writes "Days on Earth just got shorter. The recent earthquake in Chile shifted the planet's axis by about 8 cm and shortened days by 1.26 microseconds 'The changes can be modeled, though they're difficult to detect physically given their small size... Some changes may be more obvious, and islands may have shifted... Santa Maria Island off the coast near Concepcion, Chile’s second-largest city, may have been raised 2 meters (6 feet) as a result of the latest quake...'"

  

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  Google Awarded Broad Patent For Location-Based Advertising

  Posted: March 1st, 2010, 8:51pm MST by kdawson

  Mashable has a report of a patent that just issued (6-1/2 years after filing) — apparently Google now has a lock on location-based advertising. It's not clear that the search company intends to assert the patent against any other companies (such as emerging rival Apple), but it's useful as leverage. Here is the patent. Update: 03/02 14:34 GMT by S : Reader butlerm noted that the incorrect patent was linked. It now points to the correct URL.

  

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  Aurora Attack — Resistance Is Futile, Pretty Much

  Posted: March 1st, 2010, 7:36pm MST by kdawson

  eldavojohn writes "Do you have branch offices in China? iSec has published a new report (PDF) outlining the severity of the attacks on Google.cn, allegedly by the Chinese government, dubbed 'Aurora' attacks. Up to 100 companies were victims, and some are speculating that resistance to such attacks is futile. The report lays out the shape of the attacks — which were customized per-company based on installed vulnerable software and antivirus protection: '1. The attacker socially engineers a victim, often in an overseas office, to visit a malicious website. 2. This website uses a browser vulnerability to load custom malware on the initial victim's machine. 3. The malware calls out to a control server, likely identified by a dynamic DNS address. 4. The attacker escalates his privilege on the corporate Windows network, using cached or local administrator credentials. 5. The attacker attempts to access an Active Directory server to obtain the password database, which can be cracked onsite or offsite. 6. The attacker uses cracked credentials to obtain VPN access, or creates a fake user in the VPN access server. 7. At this point, the attack varies based upon the victim. The attacker may steal administrator credentials to access production systems, obtain source code from a source repository, access data hosted at the victim, or explore Intranet sites for valuable intellectual property.' The report also has pages of recommendations as well as lessons learned, which any systems administrator — even those inside the US — should read and take note of."

  

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  Newborns' Blood Used To Build Secret DNA Database

  Posted: March 1st, 2010, 5:45pm MST by kdawson

  Kanel notes a summary up at New Scientist of an investigation by a Texas newspaper revealing that Texas health officials had secretly transferred hundreds of newborn babies' blood samples to the federal government to build a DNA database. Here's the (long and detailed) article in the Texas tribune. From New Scientist: "The Texas Department of State Health Services routinely collected blood samples from newborns to screen for a variety of health conditions, before throwing the samples out. But beginning in 2002, the DSHS contracted Texas A&M University to store blood samples for potential use in medical research. These accumulated at rate of 800,000 per year. The DSHS did not obtain permission from parents, who sued the DSHS, which settled in November 2009. Now the Tribune reveals that wasn't the end of the matter. As it turns out, between 2003 and 2007, the DSHS also gave 800 anonymized blood samples to the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory to help create a national mitochondrial DNA database. This came to light after repeated open records requests filed by the Tribune turned up documents detailing the mtDNA program. Apparently, these samples were part of a larger program to build a national, perhaps international, DNA database that could be used to track down missing persons and solve cold cases."

  

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  "Patent Markings" Lawsuits Could Run Into the Trillions

  Posted: March 1st, 2010, 5:01pm MST by kdawson

  bizwriter writes "The latest legal bugaboo facing manufacturers is the false patent marking suit. Using what has been until recently an obscure type of legal action, individuals and enterprising law firms have targeted large manufacturers with lawsuits that can easily run million of dollars — in a case involving a drink cup manufacturer, over $10 trillion — for incorrectly including patent numbers on products. Some companies named in such suits are 3M, Cisco, Pfizer, Monster Cable, and Merck. Even expired patent numbers can be actionable." Sounds like a perfect opportunity for some enlightened appeals court to inject some sense into the debate. What do you think the chances are? Note: if ever there were a page that cries out for the Readability bookmarklet, this is it.

  

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  Google Acquires Online Image Editing Tool Picnik

  Posted: March 1st, 2010, 4:19pm MST by ScuttleMonkey

  Many different sources are writing to tell us about Google's acquisition of online image editing tool Picnik. "And all this leads us to today’s exciting news: we’ve just been acquired by Google! What does this mean for Picnik? It means we can think BIG. Google processes petabytes of data every day, and with their worldwide infrastructure and world-class team, it is truly the best home we could have found. Under the Google roof we’ll reach more people than ever before, impacting more lives and making more photos more awesome. What does this mean for you Picnikers? Nothing is changing right away, but Picnik now has more potential than ever before. The team that built Picnik from the grass up will continue making advanced and powerful photo-editing easier, more intuitive and more fun, so stay tuned to hear about all the cool new stuff we’re working on."

  

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  US Military Surrenders To Social Media, Changes Access Restrictions

  Posted: March 1st, 2010, 3:37pm MST by ScuttleMonkey

  Thanks to a new policy by the Department of Defense, members of the US Military will now have limited access to social media sites. "According to the memorandum, members of military departments and all authorized users of the Non-classified Internet Protocol Router Network (NIPRNET) can now use the publicly accessible capabilities of various social networking and user-generated content sites, instant messaging, forums, and e-mail. This includes YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and others. Access to porn, gambling, or hate crime sites will remain restricted, however, and commanders can cut down on social media use if they feel the need to 'preserve operations security.'"

  

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  Another ACTA Leak Discloses Individual Country Data

  Posted: March 1st, 2010, 2:54pm MST by ScuttleMonkey

  An anonymous reader writes "On the heels of the earlier leak of various country positions on ACTA transparency, today an even bigger leak has hit the Internet. A new European Union document [PDF] prepared several weeks ago canvasses the Internet and Civil Enforcement chapters, disclosing in complete detail the proposals from the US, and the counter-proposals from the EU, Japan, and other ACTA participants. The 44-page document also highlights specific concerns of individual countries on a wide range of issues including ISP liability, anti-circumvention rules, and the scope of the treaty. This is probably the most significant leak to date since it goes beyond the transparency debate to include specific country positions and proposals."

  

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  Another Study Attacks Violent Video Games, Claims To Be "Conclusive"

  Posted: March 1st, 2010, 2:12pm MST by ScuttleMonkey

  Killer Orca is one of many to tell us about a new study on the effects of violent video games on kids. The latest meta-study that analyzed research from 130 different reports claims to have "conclusively proven" that violent video games make more aggressive, less caring kids. "The team used meta-analytic procedures — the statistical methods used to analyze and combine results from previous, related literature -- to test the effects of violent video game play on the behaviors, thoughts, and feelings of the individuals, ranging from elementary school-aged children to college undergraduates. [...] Anderson says the new study may be his last meta-analysis on violent video games because of its definitive findings."

  

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  New Type of Dinosaur Unearthed

  Posted: March 1st, 2010, 1:30pm MST by ScuttleMonkey

  MileHighScience writes to mention that a new type of sauropod has been discovered by scientists from Utah's Brigham Young University. Dubbed Abydosaurus mcintoshi, the new addition to the long necked dinosaur family was discovered at Dinosaur National Monument. "The circumstances of its discovery were both unusual and dramatic. The researchers stumbled on four skulls in a quarry at the preserve. Two were still intact. Sauropod skulls are rarely found in the fossil record because the soft tissue from which they are constructed is unlikely to be preserved after death. 'Their heads are built lighter than mammal skulls because they sit way out at the end of very long necks,' Brooks Britt, a BYU paleontologist said in a news release. 'Instead of thick bones fused together, sauropod skulls are made of thin bones bound together by soft tissue.' Of more than 120 known species of sauropods, there have been only eight instances in which scientists have been able to recover intact skulls."

  

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  Microsoft Behind Google Complaints To EC

  Posted: March 1st, 2010, 12:48pm MST by ScuttleMonkey

  justice4all writes to share that some of the recent complaints to the European Commission about Google have apparently been coming from Microsoft. "A lawyer for Microsoft confirmed that the software giant told the US Department of Justice and the European Commission how Google’s business practices may be harming publishers, advertisers and competition in search and online advertising. [...] 'Google’s algorithms learn less common search terms better than others because many more people are conducting searches on these terms on Google. These and other network effects make it hard for competing search engines to catch up. Microsoft’s well-received Bing search engine is addressing this challenge by offering innovations in areas that are less dependent on volume. But Bing needs to gain volume too, in order to increase the relevance of search results for less common search terms.'"

  

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  AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA Over the Next 10 Years

  Posted: March 1st, 2010, 12:05pm MST by ScuttleMonkey

  GhostX9 writes "Alan Dang from Tom's Hardware has just written a speculative op-ed on the future of AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA in the next decade. They talk about the strengths of AMD's combined GPU and CPU teams, Intel's experience with VLIW architectures, and NVIDIA's software lead in the GPU computing world." What do you think it will take to stay on top over the next ten years? Or, will we have a newcomer that usurps the throne and puts everyone else out of business?

  

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  Tracking Water Molecules Could Unlock Secrets

  Posted: March 1st, 2010, 11:22am MST by ScuttleMonkey

  ScienceDaily is reporting that several new discoveries about the simple molecule of water have kicked off a surge in research that scientists believe could lead to solving some of the world's most tricky problems from agriculture to cancer. "Understanding how individual water molecules maneuver in a system to form fleeting tetrahedral structures and how changing physical conditions such as temperatures and pressures affect the amount of disorder each imparts on that system may help scientists understand why certain substances, like drugs used in chemotherapy, are soluble in water and why some are not. It could also help understand how this changing network of bonds and ordering of local tetrahedrality between water molecules changes the nature of protein folding and degradation. 'Understanding hydrophobicity, and how different conditions change it, is probably one of the most fundamental components in understanding how proteins fold in water and how different biomolecules remain stable in it,' says Kumar. 'And if we understand this, we will not only have a new way of thinking about physics and biology but also a new way to approach health and disease.'"

  

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  Design and Evaluation of Central Control Room Operations

  Posted: March 1st, 2010, 10:38am MST by samzenpus

  brothke writes "In aviation today, technically advanced airplanes present a unique paradox. Technically advanced airplanes, in theory, have more available safety, and the outcome should be that there are fewer accidents. But without proper training for their pilots, they could be less safe than airplanes with less available safety. The FAA found that without proper training for the pilots who fly them, technically advanced airplanes don't advance safety at all. The reason is that technically advanced airplanes present challenges that under-prepared pilots might not be equipped to handle." Read on for the rest of the review.

  

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  U.S. Government Begins Largest IT Consolidation in History

  Posted: March 1st, 2010, 9:54am MST by ScuttleMonkey

  miller60 writes "Saying 1,100 data centers is too many, the federal government has begun what looms as the largest IT consolidation in history. Federal CIO Vivek Kundra has directed federal agencies to inventory their assets by April 30 and prepare a plan to reduce the number of servers and data centers, with a focus on slashing energy costs (full memo). Kundra says some applications may be shifted to cloud computing platforms customized for government use."

  

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  US Government Begins Largest IT Consolidation in History

  Posted: March 1st, 2010, 9:54am MST by ScuttleMonkey

  miller60 writes "Saying 1,100 data centers is too many, the federal government has begun what looms as the largest IT consolidation in history. Federal CIO Vivek Kundra has directed federal agencies to inventory their assets by April 30 and prepare a plan to reduce the number of servers and data centers, with a focus on slashing energy costs (full memo). Kundra says some applications may be shifted to cloud computing platforms customized for government use."

  

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  Touchpad Meets Morphing Keyboard

  Posted: March 1st, 2010, 9:11am MST by ScuttleMonkey

  Several sources are reporting on the new offering from the British firm Pelikon which combines a touchpad and morphing keyboard into a unique little device. "this isn't just any old morphing keyboard, you see. Not only can the board be dynamically reconfigured by backlighting different portions of the keys -- the entire surface of the thing doubles as a touchpad, which you can probably imagine has virtually limitless utility in a mobile device where the space for a true touchpad simply doesn't exist. Pelikon already works with Toshiba on its domestic-market Biblio, but we'd love to see it hit devices around the world -- in fact, we wouldn't really mind if they just released this prototype they're showing as a Bluetooth accessory. diNovo Mini competitor, anyone?"

  

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  Google Go Capturing Developer Interest

  Posted: March 1st, 2010, 8:27am MST by ScuttleMonkey

  angry tapir writes with news that Google Go seems to be cutting a wide swath through the programming community in just a short time since its early, experimental release. While Google insists that Go is still a work in progress (like so many of their offerings) many developers are so intrigued by the feature set that they are already implementing many noncritical applications with it. What experiences, good or bad, have you had with Google Go, and how likely is it to really take over?

  

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  LG's Windows Phone 7 Series Early Prototype

  Posted: March 1st, 2010, 7:43am MST by ScuttleMonkey

  suraj.sun writes to tell us that Engadget got an early look at the new Windows Phone 7 series early prototype (and included a video). "The QWERTY slider is the first branded Windows Phone 7 Series device the world's ever seen, and while the hardware and software are both obviously early, we can tell you a few things about it: it's just a hair thicker than an iPhone or Nexus One, there are dedicated hardware camera, volume, and power buttons in addition to the back, home, and search buttons dictated by Windows Phone 7 Series, and we noticed a five megapixel camera with a flash on the back, along with a headphone jack. Can't say much apart from that right now, since things are so early and everything is subject to change, but things are certainly moving along."

  

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  How Do You Get Users To Read Error Messages?

  Posted: March 1st, 2010, 7:01am MST by ScuttleMonkey

  A BOFH writes "The longer I do desktop support, the more it becomes obvious that my users don't read anything that appears on their screen. Instead, they memorize a series of buttons to press to get whatever result they want and if anything unexpected happens, they're completely lost. Error logs help a lot, but they have their limits. I've been toying with a few ideas, but I don't know if any of them will work and I was hoping my fellow Slashdotters could point me in the right direction. For example, I was thinking about creating icons or logos to identify specific errors. They might not remember that an error is about 'uninitialized data' but they might be more able to remember that they got the 'puppy error' if I showed a puppy picture next to the error message. Or for times when finding images is too time consuming, you could create simple logos from letters, numbers, symbols, colors, or shapes, so you could have the 'red 5' error or 'blue square' error (or any combination of those elements). I've even wondered if it would be possible to expand that to cover the other senses, for example, playing a unique sound with the error. Unfortunately, haptic and olfactory feedback aren't readily available. I like to think that my users would remember the error that caused them to get a swift kick in the balls. And if they forgot it anyhow, I could always help them reproduce it. Does anyone else have experience with ideas like these? Did it work?"

  

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  An Exercise To Model a "Solar Radiation Katrina"

  Posted: March 1st, 2010, 6:17am MST by kdawson

  Hugh Pickens writes in with an update on the warnings we discussed a year back about the dangers of a "solar Katrina." Now NPR is reporting on a tabletop exercise mounted in Boulder, Colorado by government workers attempting to model the effects of a worst-case solar electromagnetic storm. "...an exercise held in Boulder, Colorado, has investigated what might happen if the Earth were struck by a solar storm as intense as the huge storms that occurred in 1921 and 1859 — a sort of solar Katrina — and researchers found that the impact is likely to be far worse than in previous solar storms because of our growing dependence on satellites and other electronic devices that are vulnerable to electromagnetic radiation. 'In many ways, the impact of a major solar storm resembles that of a hurricane or an earthquake,' says FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate, except that a solar Katrina would cause damage in a much larger area — power could be knocked out almost simultaneously in countries from Sweden to Canada and the US. In the exercise, the first sign of trouble came when radiation began disrupting radio signals and GPS devices, says Tom Bogdan, who directs the Space Weather Prediction Center. Ten or 20 minutes later electrically charged particles 'basically took out' most of the commercial satellites that transmit telephone conversations, TV shows, and huge amounts of data we depend on in our daily lives. But the worst damage came nearly a day later, when the solar storm began to induce electrical currents in high voltage power lines strong enough to destroy transformers around the globe, leaving millions of people in northern latitudes without power."

  

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  Killer Apartment Vs. Persistent Microwave Exposure?

  Posted: March 1st, 2010, 4:01am MST by kdawson

  An anonymous reader writes "I am considering buying a penthouse apartment in Manhattan that happens to be about twenty feet away from a pair of panel antennas belonging to a major cellular carrier. The antennas are on roughly the same plane as the apartment and point in its direction. I have sifted through a lot of information online about cell towers, most of which suggest that the radiation they emit is low-level and benign. Most of this information, however, seems to concern ground-level exposure at non-regular intervals. My question to Slashdot is: should the prospect of persistent exposure to microwave radiation from this pair of antennas sitting twenty feet from where I rest my head worry me? Am I just being a jackass? Can I, perhaps, line the walls of the place with a tight metal mesh and thereby deflect the radiation? My background is in computer engineering — I am not particularly knowledgeable about the physics of devices such as these. Please help me make an enlightened decision."

  

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  Calendar Bug Disables Older PlayStation 3 Models

  Posted: March 1st, 2010, 2:08am MST by Soulskill

  JohnWilliams writes "The Sony PlayStation Network appears to be inaccessible to older ('phat') PS3 units. Players cannot play games that require a connection, even in single-player, offline mode, e.g. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Also, the system date resets to January 1, 2000. Sony is 'looking into it.' Speculation abounds that it is a bug related to 2010 being incorrectly flagged as a leap year. The newer PS3 Slim models seem to be working properly."

  

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